


The Hosanna Anteversal

by bluestar



Series: From Out the Ocean Risen [3]
Category: Pacific Rim
Genre: Gen, Podfic Welcome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 20:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3703717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestar/pseuds/bluestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Out from the ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The On Air sign blinked to life, the red light barely more than a faint glow in the booth. A man sat hunched over an aging microphone and adjusted his headset. He twisted out his cigarette into the ashtray by his elbow before clearing his throat and leaning forward.

                  “Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, faithful listeners. Time for your on the hour news reports.”                 

                  He looked at the pile of scribbled notes sitting aside the ashtray, leafing through them for a fresh-printed sheet with the news summaries. Peering over his glasses he skimmed over the contents, giving the paper an officious shake.

                  “Looks like plans for the Sydney memorial park are well under way, thanks as usual to the push of public support for our girls and boys in shining Jaeger armor. Mutavore’s mess has been completely swept up and cleared out, leaving _plenty_ of room for the commemorative space honoring late Striker Eureka pilot Chuck Hansen…a fine use of tax payer funds, if I may say in my oh-so-biased opinion.”

                  He squinted at the sheet again.

                  “Speakin’ of Sydney, looks like at least one Wall of Life has been officially greenlighted for tear-down. No word yet on others like the Los Angeles or Sitka sites, though with Sydney’s grand mistake being ripped down, they’re sure to follow. Nothing like a good dose of public embarrassment about misuse of resources and funds to get our beloved United Nations into action, am I right?”

                  He gave a gravelly chuckle, giving the print-out one last look. The lighting in the booth was very dim aside from a half-dead lamp tucked into one corner of the room and the faded red glow of the old On Air sign, and he had to bring the paper almost up to his nose.

                  “Next up… I’ve been asked a few times now about a matter of public concern: where oh where have the BuenaKai gone? Everybody’s favorite Church of the Breach got a quick second wind six months ago with that week-long Apocalypse rehash, but ever since the quelling of the Second Wave we’ve heard nary a peep from ‘em. Sects the world ‘round have either been disbanding or slinking off into the wild blue yonder without so much as a ‘ _hail Godzilla’_ to mark their passage.”

                  The man set the sheet aside, his mouth twisting in distaste at the very thought of the BuenaKai; his meager phone lines had been clogged up with kaiju-worshipers more than once proclaiming his newscasts and open support of the Pan Pacific Defense Corp as heresy. He was used to the threats of heavenly retribution and couldn’t have cared less what any of the cultists said, but their absence from his phones had been a disconcerting - if not entirely unwelcome- surprise.

                  “Now I’m not one for conspiracy theories,” he continued. “But a church with a following that big and that crazy? Gotta wonder why they suddenly disappeared when the Breaches zipped themselves back up. The closure of the first big Breach shook ‘em, but they were up and ready with the holiest of holy ‘I told you so’s during the Wave. Can it be they’ve retreated to bunkers waiting for invasion attempt number three, out of sight and mind forever? One can hope, surely. Here’s hoping wherever they’ve gone, they _stay._ ”

                  He glanced at the clock, marking his time. The news briefs were always quick intervals between song sets in peacetime; during emergency situations his little station became almost exclusively talk radio. There hadn’t been many such situations the PPDC Emergency Broadcast Network hadn’t already covered, but he liked to fill in the official announcements with more explanatory material than what the somewhat sterile EBN offered.

                  “Last but not least, oh listeners mine – we’ve got reports of yet another outbreak of breachlings wandering out from the Sonoran Desert. The little bastards are hungry and mean as ever, and they’re sneaky as hell. Anyone within the Colorado No Man’s Land too stubborn to pick up sticks – as always, I applaud your bravery in the face of all those teeth and nasty rippin’ claws, but there comes a time when survival is more important that keeping up the homestead. International reports of breachling activity aren’t any sunnier than stuff State-side, I’m afraid.”

                  He glanced up at the corkboard hanging on the left-hand wall; it was plastered over with magazine and newspaper clippings, one of the foremost featuring a photo of a dead bull breachling and the PPDC hunters that had brought it down. It smacked of posing with a kill after a big game hunt, but the man couldn’t spare any tears for the little monsters; breachlings were vicious, hunting in packs and breeding generation after generation of equally-nasty replacements that tore up anything unlucky enough to cross their paths.

                  “I’ve received reports from people with boots on the ground all over the place about nests of breachlings being dug up. While the infestation in Thailand has been officially declared eradicated, there’s news of the critters making themselves at home as far as the coastal caves of the Dead Sea. Matter of fact, PPDC just had themselves a field trip to the Sea and firebombed a couple dozen caves, cleaning out over the breeding pairs and their spawn.”

He sighed, taking off his glasses and rubbing tiredly at the bridge of his nose.

“The reach of the invaders and their kaiju attack dogs is long, listeners. So take heed: the big ones might not be busting down our cities anymore, but we still live in times where we gotta be careful even walking out the front door.”

                  Another glance at the clock told him his self-allotted news time was almost up. He sat up, adjusting the microphone.

                  “Sorry to end this hour on a pessimistic note, but you know how it is. Thank you as always for tuning in. This is Radio Free Jaeger, and I? I am your one, I am your only…DJ Icarus, signing off.”

                  The On Air sign clicked off. Icarus switched over to music once more to play until morning, easing off his headset and pushing away from the console. He left the booth and then backtracked for his pack of cigarettes, patting his pant pockets for his lighter as he went outside. A muggy, quiet night greeted him as he went out the back door of his studio – or rather, the converted garage he operated out of. Radio Free Jaeger wasn’t very impressive to look at from the outside; jerry rigged towers and broadcast equipment that crowned his rundown house and dotted his overgrown front yard, all running from power sources of questionable stability. Icarus was proud of what he’d made all the same- it was his, built with his own two hands and years of experience in the mechanical as well as broadcasting fields. He did it without expectation of thanks, or credit or hell, even for _attention_ – but people gave those things to him all the same, and it felt good to know he was making some kind of difference.

                  Icarus sat down on the cracked plastic chair overlooking the back yard in desperate need of landscaping. Trees cloaked with Spanish moss stood in hunched-over lines, bordering his property on all sides. The air felt thick with humidity and he coughed as he smoked the day’s last cigarette. The habit was catching up to him  and he knew he ought to quit; Icarus smoked the cigarette down to the filter anyway and twisted the stub under his heel, heading back inside and feeling like he had to wring out his shirt, the humidity clinging to him like a second skin.

                  The phone line was dead when he came back in; he felt a little disappointed, though he didn’t mind not having to deal with any callers so late at night. They always lit up like crazy after a news break, people overflowing with tips and eye-witness accounts, the BuenaKai threatening him with Kaiju Blue-tainted hellfire…he had tracked their rise when they had been just another delusional doomsday cult. It was the natural order of things for people to try and frame understanding around the unconceivable, and Icarus had waited for the news of the cult’s self-inflicted demise. To his relief in one aspect, that expectation had never been met – unlike other doomsday cults the BuenaKai hadn’t seemed interested in flinging their souls to the judgment of their reptilian overlords.

                  Instead they had grown, and _that_ Icarus found more disturbing than anything else; they had gained a veneer of legitimacy, taking over where other faiths began to flounder. He glanced over at the phone lines and found they were still dormant. Emails yielded the same collection of news subscriptions as always, tips and stories he would sort through in the morning…a few marked with high importance, the titles highlighted in red.

Icarus wavered, caught between curiosity and wanting to go to bed; he cursed himself half-earnestly for giving in to the urge for ‘ _one last email’_ and sat down at the computer, clicking through the list. The computer was hideously slow to load – he found holocomputer set ups with their haptic screens to be a luxury that was entirely unnecessary and ridiculous, but as he listened to his old rig whirr with the effort of loading a damn photo file he found himself reconsidering the anti-upgrade stance.

                  The written portion of the email wasn’t in a language Icarus knew; auto-translate marked it as Icelandic, and the translated message was mangled as per usual by the cheap program. He puzzled through it, transcribing the poor translation onto his notepad as the photo images continued to load, his touchy Wi-Fi processing pictures at a crawl. He sat back, looking over his re-translation of the email with a frown.

_“Thought this is interesting for you; entire area around Hekla [??] volcano is declared off-limits by government, saying volcano is 'unstable' and the land unsafe. Authority/Army [???] declared no-fly zone as well -  twenty mile radius. There is surveillance all over border/perimeter [ **get better translator app!!]** \- set up that is worst fake scientist camps [????] set-up I have ever seen. Hekla is active and army using it to cover up this – almost got caught last time, will try again for more pictures.”_

                  Icarus frowned at his notes, then over at the computer screen; he was used to conspiracy theorists and overzealous would-be informants giving him information he had to research and clean up before he could present them to his audience. It was helpful to have eyewitnesses eager to share their view from the field, and Icarus couldn’t even begin to count the times he had passed along important information before the network broadcasts could so much as sniff around for a story. This, he realized with a growing cold knot in his chest, was going to be one of those times. He pushed his glasses up his nose and stared at the photos, clicking through one after the other. A scarred, volcanic landscape, several photos of the ‘outposts’ the emailer had mentioned… a barren pit of a valley that sunk deep below the broken crust of lava fields, and sitting inside…

                  “Well, _shit.”_

                 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

__

_“How’s it going out there, sir?”_

                  Herc looked out the window facing the bay, watching the weak sunlight glance off the iron-grey water. He rubbed at the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders; he felt stiff and tired, worn down from the long day of talking.

                  “It goes,” he said. “Bunch of bureaucratic double-talking. I think there’s progress in there somewhere.”

                  “ _That’s good_ ,” Tendo said. He frowned, head tilting to one side. “ _Right? It’s positive progress, isn’t it_?”

                  “It’s in our favor,” Herc replied. He resisted the urge to let himself fall backwards and lay on the bed to stare up at the ceiling. It had been a long day, the latest in a long line of the same; Anchorage was a hub for the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, not the least of which a political meeting ground. Dealing with United Nations representatives, military officials and contractors of every stripe had blurred into a mass of responsibility Herc hadn’t realized he could handle without wanting to explode.

                  “ _All due respect sir, you look ready to drop_ ,” Tendo said. Herc laughed, the sound little more than a huff of air.

                  “I’ve been at it since sunrise,” he said. “Politicking starts early. Doesn’t help I’ve got His Royal Highness Representative Taylor sticking to me like a shadow.”

                  “ _You have my sympathies_ ,” Tendo said, trying to hide a grin. “ _Still can’t find an excuse to knock him down a flight of stairs?”_

                  “Not for lack of trying. It’s bad form to commit murder in the midst of funding negotiations though. Maybe afterwards. It’s awfully slick outside after that last storm…just elbow him off the docks. No one would know.”

                  “ _Sounds like you’ve been putting a lot of thought into it.”_

                  “More than is healthy,” Herc muttered. “I can hardly stand to talk to him when there are a hundred miles and vid-call screens between us. The up-close-and-personal route is agony.”

                  He slid off the bed and rolled his shoulders as he paced, finding himself by the window. He stood by the window and stared out again at the whitecaps curling across the sea.

                  “How’s things back on the home front?”

                  “ _Slow and steady, sir. Reconstruction’s finished with Puma Real, she’s shipping out to Lima by Wednesday at the latest_ ,” Tendo said. He shuffled through a sizable pile of papers, studying a thick packet and flipping through it. “ _New shipment of breachling specimens in, too. Just came in about twelve hours ago…there was a problem with one of the storage containers, the sample’s spoiled_.”

                  “Oh, boy.” Herc grinned, turning back to the vid-call console. “How’s our esteemed Doctor Geiszler responding to that?”

                  _“Calm and collected, how else_ ,” Tendo said blandly. “ _He wasn’t wrong in being ticked off, though. Whole new breed all the way out from the Dead Sea this time around_.”

                  Herc’s brief good mood faded. He sighed, pinching at the bridge of his nose to stave off the beginning stirrings of yet another tension headache.

                  “Didn’t even know they were having troubles with the things that far out. How bad was it?”

                  “ _Report said it’s an isolated colony, but they dug in fast and started breeding almost immediately.“_ Tendo shuffled through papers again, and then frowned and ducked off-screen; Herc could hear him typing at another console. “ _Yeah, there we go. ‘Colony reported with final count six does, four bulls. Fifteen clutches identified and terminated after extermination run’_.”

                  “Fifteen?” Herc asked, aghast. “They average clutches of five to six at most!”

                  “They were in that nest for a while, sir. Estimated about three weeks. That’s time enough to spawn an entire new generation.”

                  Herc scowled, making a disgusted sound.

                  “Any casualties?”

                  “ _Nothing reported beyond the breachlings themselves_ ,” Tendo said. “ _It was a lucky find, though. They tracked one of the bulls bringing livestock back to the nest in a cave system by the shoreline. They could’ve gone undisturbed for months.”_

                  “How big were these ones?”

                  “ _Keeping up the average ten to twelve tons. Not so bad, considering_.”

                  “Lucky us,” Herc muttered. “How the hell could they miss lizards bigger than elephants for that long, anyway?”

                  Tendo shrugged.

                  “ _They’re stealthier than people give them credit for. At least they’re not getting any bigger_.”

                  “Not much of a silver lining, Officer Choi.”

                  “ _Grasping for optimistic straws in a messed-up world, sir_ ,” Tendo said cheerfully. “ _I’d rather the runts than something like Slattern_.”

                  Herc nodded in grudging agreement.

                  “You’ve got me there,” he said. “Anything else of note?”

                  “ _Business as usual. Nothing’s exploded lately if that’s what you’re hoping for_.”

                  “Good to hear. Make sure the place is still standing when I get back, yeah?”

                  “ _I’ll do my best, sir.”_

                  The vid-call blinked off, leaving the screen blank. Herc sank down to sit on the bed’s edge again, rubbing his hands over his face. There was a faint accrual of stubble scraped across his palms, and his fingertips traced the lines that creased at the corners of his eyes and furrowed between his eyebrows. He felt haggard and worn down and wondered at it; he hadn’t done much aside from talk all day. He let his hands fall on to his lap and finally let himself lay back, studying the rough stucco ceiling. There was a water stain blooming in one corner by the window, a dirty amber color creeping in inch by inch.

                  Herc blinked slowly, giving in to his tiredness with little resistance. The Anchorage trip had been going well; the usual bandying and bargaining for funding had lost a lot of its difficulty in the past months, though it was doubtful because Herc was becoming a better negotiator – the world’s governments had been sent reeling by the multiple Breach incident, and the clamor and rush to return the Jaeger program to the glory of its heyday had been of utmost importance for the better part of a year. Herc had spent a collective five weeks in the Los Angeles Shatterdome in all that time, spending the majority on the road and other ‘domes.

                  The Anchorage trip would herald the end to it. Marshall D’Onofrio was still entrenched in command of the Alaska site, Herc’s long-expected transfer and assumption of power something that everyone glossed over in conversation whenever he tried to bring it up. He wasn’t sure if he even cared about it at this point; he was comfortable in Los Angeles overseeing the ongoing restorations. But still, but still…there was a small, nagging feeling he couldn’t shake, as though some measurement of his abilities had failed, keeping the position out of his reach.

                  A long, wearied sigh escaped him and he sat up, rubbing at his eyes. It didn’t matter how he felt about it. The Anchorage position was D’Onofrio’s, and Herc didn’t have the energy to engage in the kind of politicking to vie for it. He shook off the lingering fog of tiredness as best he could and got up, heading to the bathroom to shower and clean up. If he was smart and stealthy about it he could sneak into the mess hall for dinner. He remembered the back halls and stairways well enough; anything to avoid contact with the officials he’d been stuck with all week, Representative Taylor especially.

                  Herc was halfway done shaving when a soft, insistent knock caught his ear. He closed his eyes and prayed to nothing in particular before calling out.

                  “Yes?”

                  “Can I come in, Marshall?”

                  The apprehensive knot in Herc’s chest loosened at once.

                  “It’s unlocked, Doctor Lightcap.”

                  The door swung open on rather rusty hinges with a thin squeal. Lightcap lingered by the bathroom door without looking in.

                  “Are you decent?”

                  “Passably,” Herc said, smiling a little. “What brings you down here?”

                  “Missed getting to talk to you at the breakfast meeting this morning. You hightailed it out the minute they opened the door.” She leaned in, giving Herc a wry look. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were fleeing for your life.”

                  Herc chuckled, finishing shaving and splashing cold water on his face to drive off the last dregs of weariness.

                  “Life, dignity, sanity…the list is endless,” he said. He grasped for a towel and scrubbed his face dry.  “I was going to attempt at a covert dinner run.”

                  “You could just abuse your power and have it delivered to your room,” Lightcap said. Herc snorted, grabbing a clean dress shirt from the suitcase yawning open on the floor.

                  “I haven’t become that much of an intolerable ass yet,” he replied. He buttoned the shirt up and fussed for a moment with the shirttail, tucking it in and scowling down at himself. “Feels like I’m under a microscope for everything these days.”

                  He left the room with Lightcap, the fussing over his shirt transferring to his jacket; he picked at the lint he seemed to attract no matter how hard he tried to keep tidy. Lightcap helped, pulling off a bit of it from his stiff collar.

                  “Not everything. Just the stupid minor details that could ruin your reputation in casual conversation,” she said.

                  “What, like if I’m wearing the Corp logo pin on the right lapel?”

                  “Or what color handkerchief you’re using. Or if you starch your epaulets properly.”

                  “Thank God we’re so focused on the important things,” Herc said. “Should I enter the room with a twirl, too?”

                  “Mm, not with this uniform. You’ll need better coattails. Something swishy.”

                  “I’ll keep that in mind for tomorrow. Have another meeting I have to sit through with Taylor, might as well make a grand entrance.”

                  Lightcap laughed, the sound echoing through the hall; it was empty of personnel besides them, but it no longer had the air of disuse that had been so common in the Shatterdomes until seven months ago. The cobwebs and dust had been cleaned away, repairs made and staff trickling back. The trickle, in fact, had steadily been building into a flood; almost all the Shatterdomes were back to full functionality and service.

                  “He didn’t look very pleased with you.”

                  “Sorry?”

                  “Mister Taylor,” Lightcap said. “Every time you speak he gets this pinched look to his mouth.”

                  “Like he’s trying to keep from telling me to shut up, yeah. If he bites on his tongue any harder he’s going to go right through it.”

                  “Rumor has it he’s one more misstep from losing his job,” Lightcap said, a bare trace of sympathy in her tone. “Everything started on a downward slope for him once he started openly backing the Wall project.”

                  “Seemed to be doing alright by me,” Herc said. Lightcap shook her head.

                  “Personally, maybe. But public opinion nosedived. He’s holding onto his UN seat by his fingernails.”

                  “My heart bleeds,” Herc muttered.

                  “I’m not crying for him either. But at this point, is it a better devil we know than some new roadblock?”

                  “Their bureaucracy doesn’t have the strength it used to. They’re toothless.”

                  Lightcap paused, looking up at Herc thoughtfully. He kept on a few paces before he realized he’d left her behind; he turned back to her.

                  “You really think that?” she asked. Herc nodded, though his conviction wavered at her soft tone.

                  “I’m not their biggest fan. Never have been.”

                  “It’s not just about personal opinions, Marshall.”

                  “Meaning?”

                  Lightcap rocked on her heels, considering. The silence spiraling between them had the heavy air of things Herc wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

                  “Your opinions hold a lot more weight than you realize. That’s all.”

                  “I know I’m in a precarious position about what I say and do,” Herc said. “This is strictly off the record.”

                  She nodded, though the thoughtful look didn’t fade. Herc felt something shift between them; some balance of power that was gathering in his corner, waiting for him whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not. The idea of it put him ill at ease. Herc had been a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force for years, taking orders and fulfilling them to the best of his ability. That attitude hadn’t changed with his transition into the Jaeger program and the Corps, not even after his promotion to Marshall. He had never once felt as though his core principles and understanding of duty had changed; merely the venue for them.

                  “Is there something I’m not picking up here?” he asked. Lightcap’s expression finally eased completely away from its troubling thoughtfulness, though the tension in the air didn’t leave along with it.

                  “That’s something you’d have to be speaking to Mister Taylor about, not me,” she said. “I’m not as privy to it as he is.”

                  “Being cryptic isn’t much of a boost for confidence.”

                  “I don’t mean to be cryptic,” she said, putting a hand on his arm. “Sergio doesn’t pay attention to it beyond keeping them off his back so we can keep this place to standard. We’re too far removed from it.”

                  “From _what?_ ”

                  “The rest of the world,” Lightcap said. They started to walk again in stride; Herc wasn’t quite aware of where they went, attention focused on her. “It’s been almost a year since Pitfall and the Second Wave. People are still bracing for a third attempt. They’ll never stop jumping at shadows, not after everything that’s happened.”

                  “We couldn’t have anticipated the Wave,” Herc said. “Pitfall should've been the final push.”

                  “And when the Wave happened, who do you think they were blaming?”

                  “The Corps did its duty with what it had. We put an end to it.”

                  “We did,” Lightcap said. “But we won by stumbling blind into the dark and going on faith. It was a lucky break, Marshall. It shouldn’t have worked out as it did. Nobody pinned blame on the Corps afterwards for the struggle between Pitfall and the Wave, but there _was_ an outcry.”

                  “Against the UN, not us,” Herc said. His face fell after a moment, processing his own words. “They blamed the UN…they’re the ones that hobbled us.”

                  Lightcap nodded.

                  “And we came out of the wreckage of two invasions as the last bastion of hope,” she said. “Any politician opposing the Jaeger program or anything involved with it has been blacklisted. It’s career suicide to be anything other than supportive of the Corps.”

                  “That’s not what we’re supposed to be,” Herc said. “We’re not… _I’m_ not…”

                  “I know you’re not,” Lightcap said quietly. “But there are a lot of well-meaning people who don’t see it that way. And there’s even more opposition that feels the same.”

                  The noise and chatter of the Shatterdome mess caught Herc off-guard; he started, looking up and into the crowd of Corps uniforms with a sharp, unwelcome jab of unease.

                  “What do you think of us?” he asked. “In the grand scheme of things.”

                  “We did what we were made for. And now we’re adapting to a world that doesn’t need us for our first purpose…and that’s shaking up what’s left of the old status quo.”

                  Herc frowned, following Lightcap into the mess and finding himself avoiding catching the eye of any of the collected personnel.

                  “So it’s an evolution?”

                  Lightcap rocked on her heels for a moment, considering.

                  “We were never meant for stagnation.”

                  “I’m a bit tired of _adapt or die_ , if I’m honest.”

                  “Progress is a greedy creature,” Lightcap replied. “It wants everything a person can pour into it, and survival is dependent on keeping up with it. And if you neglect it…”

                  “It comes back to bite you.” Herc sighed, taking a seat at the end of one of the long tables. Lightcap sat opposite him and they looked out into the hall, watching the milling crowds of techs, piloting recruits and mechanics. “Suppose there really never was any other choice for us but to keep going, was there.”

                  “There’s worse things.”

                  “Oh?”

                  “Could’ve gone the UN route and stuck our heads in the sand,” Lightcap said. She took off her glasses and polished the scratched lenses with her shirttail, frowning as she only made the smears worse.

                  “I almost wish I could live in that kind of denial. Just for a minute. It seems kind of freeing, doesn’t it?”

                  “You just say that because you’ve got the entire world pressing down on you twenty four hours a day,” Lightcap said mildly. Herc laughed, digging a handkerchief out of his pocket and tossing it to her.

                  “I strive to be as world weary and long-suffering as possible. Adds to my mystique.”

                  “You _do_ cut an enigmatic figure, Marshall.”

                  “Unless that’s code for ‘ _subtle as a brick to the face’_ , I think you’re winding me up.”

                  “Me? Lie to a peer? You judge me too harshly,” Lightcap said, making him laugh again. They stayed in the mess and talked of more inconsequential things for a while, picking over their food. Herc was glad for the company, but the new worries lingered in the back of his mind in cold knots he knew he couldn’t ignore, no matter how much he wanted to.


	3. Chapter 3

 

                  It was ten past five in the morning and Tendo was barely awake. He sat at his console in LOCCENT staring at nothing in particular, the cool voice of an AI ticking off warmup time in his headset and the chatter of other early risers floating around him. The Jaeger stood at attention in its bay cradle just outside the command center’s window overlooking the work floor, the Conn-Pod’s visor dark as the slow process of engine warmup spread life into its dormant frame.

                  “ _Power draw at forty-five percent.”_

Tendo blinked back to attentiveness, making a notation on the clipboard balanced haphazardly on his knee. Mako had requested the rate of warmup benchmarks versus actual time be tracked, trying to find where the process lagged. Allthe better to take apart and start from scratch, finding where even the slightest weakness might linger and obsessively rework it until the offending system ran smooth as silk. Anyone else would have called the attention to detail overkill, and to be fair they wouldn’t be wrong. God help whoever said so in Mako’s presence, though.

                  “ _Power draw at fifty percent.”_

                  It _felt_ like it was going slow. Maybe because his brain seemed cobwebbed despite the five hours sleep he’d managed to snatch before coming right back to his console, hunching over it and preparing for another long day cloistered in LOCCENT. Tendo rubbed at his eyes, sucking in a deep breath to quell the yawn trying to escape. He stayed up too late and came back too early. That had been the pattern for years…but it was catching up with him lately. The Jaegers were being restored within the Los Angeles ‘dome and _that_ responsibility alone kept him up late with worry. The Marshall wouldn’t throw more on Tendo than he could handle, but the sense of _not doing enough_ lingered all too often. There were no more cracks in the world for monsters to crawl out from, but Tendo knew he would never feel like he was doing enough unless he took on every bit of slack the others didn’t even realize existed.

                  “ _Power draw at fifty-five percent._ ”

                  And it wasn’t as though anyone would dare tell _him_ he was overdoing things; the world was still a mess and probably would be for decades to come. Mini-kaiju running wild, cities in ruins, people scared stiff of their own shadows…Tendo could see no end to it, and despite how much it saddened him it only sharpened his resolve. He would help the Corps sweep up the wreck the kaiju and their overlords had left behind, and damn anyone or anything that said he and everyone else working themselves to the bone was doing too much _._

                  “ _Power draw at sixty-”_   

                  “Tendo?”

                  There was a hand on his shoulder he hadn’t even noticed; Tendo sat up straighter, the fugue clearing as he looked up to find Gottlieb staring down at him.

                  “You sneak like a cat,” Tendo said. “Where’d you even come from?”

                  “The shadows, waiting for my chance to strike.” Gottlieb’s tone was dry, making Tendo snort. “You were certainly distracted enough.”

                  “Lot on my mind and not enough energy to keep up with it all,” Tendo countered. He set the clipboard aside and stretched in his chair, working out the kinks settling in his body from sitting hunched over for so long. Gottlieb gave him another look that lingered, taking the unspoken hint when Tendo pointedly pretended not to notice.

                  “How goes the warmup?”

                  “Lagging. Mako’ll be cracking that thing open before the day’s out.” He scowled muzzily out at the looming Jaeger. “Chassis is a polished-up Mark Two but that thing’s got a Mark Five heart. What gives, y’know?”

                  “Any number of things,” Gottlieb said, regarding the Jaeger with more patience than Tendo could muster. “Could be as simple as an ill-routed line of wiring. Smaller things have brought down greater constructs.”

                  “That’s insufferably poetic of you, Doctor.”

                  “I like to hit my obnoxious stride as early as possible,” Gottlieb said. “You’re overseeing this test for my benefit anyway, you know.”

                  Tendo gave him a blank look, and then snapped his fingers in remembrance.

                  “Right, the AI…whatever. The update thing.”

                  Gottlieb was clearly refraining from commenting, though a corner of his mouth quirked in a smile Tendo immediately glowered at him for.

                  “Crack of dawn. Shut up.”

                  “I didn’t say a word.”

                  “Keep it that way,” Tendo said. Gottlieb patted his shoulder and went to an open console, pulling up his own work screens and flicking through the holographic displays until he found the program he wanted. The computer was linked remotely to readings from the Jaeger’s onboard systems; Tendo glanced over at Gottlieb’s console, brows furrowed.

                  “It’s like a brain scan.”

                  “Nothing so advanced,” Gottlieb said, eyes fixed on the screen. “Newton’s already cracked too many jokes about Skynet for my tolerance, I’d appreciate you not adding onto it.”

                  Tendo rolled over next to him; the screen mapped the Jaeger AI core, a spherical structure netted with interconnecting nodes within its shell. Each node had a specific job, the connections relaying information from one to the other to process like a complex – though non-sentient- brain.

                  “So this is what you and Lightcap have been working on,” he said. Gottlieb nodded.

                  “The old AI suite was too outdated to fit properly with the renovated units once they were kitted out. It’d be a disservice to the technology to have it operate on antiquated software.”

                  “Yeah, but at least the last iteration was tried and true,” Tendo said, frowning. The AI core cycled into a refreshed reading, the nodes lighting up like fireworks. “What’s it doing?”

                  “Finalizing installation.”

                  “Uh huh. And how much technical jargon are you _not_ adding?”

                  “Quite a lot, actually.” Gottlieb glanced over at Tendo. “You’re only on your second cup of coffee. I wasn’t sure if I should push it.”

                  “You’re too kind,” Tendo said dryly. He wheeled his chair back over to his own console and stared at it blankly for a moment, trying to pick up where he’d left off; it took too long for his liking for the memory of work deferred to click back into place, and he shook his head at himself as he picked up his clipboard. He could feel Gottlieb’s attention flicking towards him every few moments, or at least imagined he could. Damn it all, when was he ever this disorganized? When had being _tired_ been an obstacle? Compared to the shifts he’d pulled when the war was beginning its decline his work these days was a cakewalk. Maybe –

                  “Dammit.” Tendo clicked through the screens, trying to find the power draw monitors. The computer was touchy with multiple programs running at once and could freeze up if he wasn’t careful. He flicked at the haptic display in growing frustration, grasping at the icons that refused to respond. “Oh for the love of-”

                  The entire display shimmered and fell blank, back to startup. Tendo closed his eyes and counted quietly back from ten before hitting the restart key far harder than necessary. Fine. Whatever. He would just start up everything from scratch, not like they were running actual operations or – damn, that reminded him, he needed to put together the meeting for patrol roster monitors and-

                  Gottlieb’s hand brushed over the computer’s keyboard, putting it into standby. Tendo blinked at it in confusion, then looked at Gottlieb in undeniable irritation.

                  “Hermann. What the hell.”

                  He didn’t like the look Gottlieb was giving him; not pity…worry? Shit. It _was_ worry. Tendo shooed him away from the computer awkwardly.

                  “My, uh…it just. It kind of does that sometimes.”

                  “You missed an entire conversation with me staring at that startup screen,” Gottlieb said. He gestured for Tendo to follow. “Primary installation can look after itself for a bit.”

                  “I can’t just up and leave, Hermann-”

                  “You can. I’d prefer you not make me badger you about it.”

                  Tendo gave his console with its dormant screens one last look before sighing, pushing away from it and following Gottlieb out with marked reluctance. No one commented on their departure; everyone was busy, and Tendo felt an unreasonable guilt leaving LOCCENT behind as Gottlieb walked out into the corridor.

                  “I’m in a million different places right now,” he said preemptively. “You’re the computer whiz anyway, anything I missed would’ve gone over my head.”

                  “It’s not like you to falter under multitasking,” Gottlieb replied. Tendo looked away, scowling aimlessly. The walk grew increasingly uncomfortable in its silence, the steady soft tap of Gottlieb’s cane on metal grating and concrete the only sound between them.

                  “Did you really take me out for fresh air?” he asked. He disliked how annoyed his tone was but he couldn’t seem to stifle it.

                  “I removed you from an environment that seems to be inducing more stress than it should. You’ve developed something of an edge.”

                  “An edge? What, like…Hermann, for Chrissakes. It’s like five in the morning, alright? Anyone’d be testy this early.”

                  “I’ve known you to work through thirty-six hour shifts with half hour intervals of sleep, without so much as ever raising your voice,” Gottlieb countered coolly. “Just now you looked ready to rip out that keyboard and brain somebody with it.”

                  Tendo hunched his shoulders, giving Gottlieb an uncomfortable glance. Gottlieb was looking steadily ahead, his expression fixed.

                  “Did I?”

                  “You did. So, as one who has often faced the fierce and misdirected ire of overwhelmed, overworked peers, I decided to intervene before there was damage to both property and reputation.”

                  That earned Gottlieb a dismissing laugh, though the sound of it fell flat. The corridor opened into a small, semicircular hub with three other hallways; Gottlieb simply kept going straight, his clear expectation Tendo would keep following slightly annoying. He followed all the same, weighing Gottlieb’s succinct words.

                  “Thanks for not using that whole computer thing as a metaphor,” he said eventually. “Must be killing you not to.”

                  “I try to avoid symbolism unless situations are truly dire.”

                  Tendo laughed again, quiet but genuine.

                  “So is this the part where I thank you for your concern, or are you expecting something else? We finish this walk, I have to go back in there. Nothing’s changed for a fifteen minute break.”

                  “I’m expecting an explanation why you look more exhausted and worried now that the war is over,” Gottlieb said. “I’ve known you almost your entire tenure within the Corps. If someone else were behaving this way within LOCCENT you would have them on mandatory leave to prevent a complete burnout.”

                  “I need to keep busy,” Tendo said evasively. Gottlieb waved the weak explanation away as though it was a bothersome insect.

                  “If you’re going to lie, at least attempt a solid reason.”

                  “I’m not _lying._ I just…no one else in that damn roster knows what the hell they’re doing like I do, I put the _order_ in for my old Hong Kong team to be brought back but they’re all dispersed all over the planet, so there’s having to train and instruct and-” Tendo paused to take a breath, feeling the frustrated rant boiling in his chest and struggling to get out. He had to swallow hard against it, studying the anxious tension with slow-dawning surprise. “Sorry. That just…”

                  “Came out of nowhere? No, I don’t think it did. Out of curiosity…aside from your LOCCENT duties, what else have you been voluntarily pulling onto yourself?”

                  Tendo was silent for a long moment, mouth twisting into a grimace.

                  “If I tell you you’re right and that I’m stressed out, will you leave it alone?”

                  “I’d prefer to know why you feel it necessary to isolate, when you of all people know the importance of splitting a heavy burden equally.”

                  Their path had wandered down through the Shatterdome into an unknown hall, the uniform corridors of cement, metal and florescent lights blending together into a labyrinth that seemed endless. Tendo leaned against the wall and ran a hand through his hair, attention fixed on the metal grille floor.

                  “I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “Everyone else is settling into peacetime so quick it’s like all that struggle and doubt we went through didn’t happen. I want to work like I was during the war…want to do _more_ , so the next time it happens I’ll know what to do. Not just stabbing blind in the dark.”

                  “You believe something else is going to happen?”

                  “No. Maybe. I’m just…expecting the hammer to fall. I try to let it go and move on but I can’t. Not after all we went through. Not after what I’ve seen.”

                  He looked up at Gottlieb, holding his hands up almost in exasperation.

                  “So I work. I make sure we’re prepared. And…slowly burn myself out by inches in the meantime.”

                  Gottlieb gave a slow nod, leaning on the wall beside him; the cheap whitewash smeared onto his coat but he seemed unbothered by it. There was a stretch of more companionable silence and Tendo felt a little lighter for his admission. It felt good to frame his worries out loud, rather than let them rattle around in his head.

                  “Not everything needs enduring alone,” Gottlieb said after a long few moments. “And as much as you may disagree, you’re not omniscient. You can’t take on everything all at once because you think no one else will do it properly. Who has decided that your actions are the only correct ones?”

                  Tendo had no answer for that, and Gottlieb continued on; his tone was quiet, though not placating.

                  “ _You_ did, then. Which is a perfectly normal thing for an anxious, worried person to do. But the insidious trap within that kind of thinking is that if you fail, everything will come apart. So the anxious, fearful ideas that you must keep holding everything up grow worse, on and on until one day…everything slips out of your grasp. But the world doesn’t end because of it.”

                  He toyed absently with the ID badge clipped at his belt, studying the old metal pipes that ran below the grille of the floor. The entire hall was lined with pipes; cold, empty veins that ran through the repurposed building.

                  “I can only tell you, that whatever fears you’re harboring about LOCCENT or the Shatterdome or a hundred other things that must be eating at you are not true, or not nearly as terrible as you have convinced yourself they are,” Gottlieb said. “It is up to you to believe me. And I know that is a very difficult thing to do.”

                  Tendo slouched further against the wall, feeling one of the dead pipes pressing against the small of his back and sending an unpleasant chill skittering up his spine. Gottlieb waited patiently but he didn’t seem to be looking for an response; he was merely waiting.

                  “If I stop trying so hard it feels like I’ll have done nothing at all,” he said eventually. “To protect people. To get the Jaegers back in order and ready. But I can’t keep up with myself anymore. Mind’s racing a hundred miles an hour in every direction. I tell the Marshall everything’s fine and he expects me to keep it that way. If I crash and burn…”

                  “You won’t.”

                  Tendo gave him a sardonic look.

                  “That a fact?”

                  Gottlieb nodded with sincere confidence.

                  “I carried the same kind of fears for a long time, watching the J-Tech department wither away until only I was left,” he said. He smiled faintly at the dawning look on Tendo’s face. “Ah, yes. Your insistence that only you can stave off the Apocalypse is not a unique condition."

Tendo sighed long and low, the sound of it a muffled echo soon swallowed up.

                  “I really hate it when you’re this right,” he said. “No wonder it gets under Newt’s skin so bad.”

  
                  “I didn’t say it for the sake of being right, I said it because I’m your friend.” Gottlieb held his hands out, imploring. “You’ve come too far to sabotage yourself in a time meant for recovery and rebuilding. I don’t expect you to ask for help. I just want you to know I’m offering it.”

                  Tendo mulled for a moment, the tension that had been fixed in the furrow between his eyebrows and the clenching of his jaw loosening its grip slightly. Gottlieb made no outward comments about it, though to see even a small bit of the burden slip off Tendo was relieving.

                  “I’ll keep it in mind, Hermann,” he said, looking up. He still looked tired, but at least it didn’t seem to be suffocating him now. Progress in small steps was better than none at all. Gottlieb gave a sharp, quick nod, and they left the corridor in stride back to LOCCENT.


	4. Chapter 4

 

                  “Is it too much to ask of you to pay attention during meetings? At least _pretend_ you’re interested in the running of your own organization, Marshall. You’re lucky we avoided an international incident.”

                  Herc’s patience had worn so thin he was sure the slightest breeze could rip it to shreds. Having Representative Taylor muttering in his ear was testing that fragility, and Herc was certain that if the mealy-mouthed politician didn’t shut up in the next five seconds, there really _would_ be an incident. His tension showed plainly on his face and yet Taylor was still powering on.

                  “Don’t give me that dirty look. If you can’t even be bothered to stay awake-”

                  “I _was_ awake!”

                  “You were _dozing_ ,” Taylor said hotly. “Another minute and you would’ve dropped facedown onto the table.”

                  This was an entirely unfair exaggeration; Herc had closed his eyes for hardly more than a minute, trying to give himself a rest after reading hour upon hour of forms and contract agreements. His own damned pride in not wanting to wear reading glasses was catching up to him with strained eyes and aching temples after reading in the perpetually dim meeting room.

                  “Don’t you have someone else you could be badgering? I saw an ambassador out from Russia, go bother _them_ for a while,” he said. Taylor shot him an ugly look.

                  “If you’re going to be this petulant I might as well be forwarding this to your secretary, if you even have one. Or your personal assistant.”

                  “I don’t keep an office staff,” Herc muttered. Taylor’s exasperated sigh grated further on his frail patience.

                  “Which is why you are so frequently behind and late on so many different fronts,” Taylor said, chiding. “The Corps has an administrative and office division for a _reason_ , Marshall!”

                  “You cannot possibly be following me all the way across the ‘dome to lecture me about how I file my paperwork,” Herc said, stopping abruptly. “It is the _last day_ we have to be stuck here together, and I am already _fully_ aware of the workload I’m bringing home with me. What else do you want?”

                  Taylor had several folders bundled up in his hands; not an unusual sight, with everyone running about overloaded with the things whether they had an office staff flocking around them or not. Herc had a tower of them himself he had to cart back to Los Angeles. Taylor was digging around in his stack now, ready to present Herc with another to add to the pile.

                  “We’ve had staff arrivals dispersing all week. I left off speaking to you about it until the last one arrived this morning, this is the first chance I’ve had to-”

                  There was a swift, sharp click of heels on the cement floor that drew their attention; a stately, grey-haired woman as approaching them with her eyes set on Herc. Taylor gave an irritated sound at the sight of her.

                  Herc recognized the woman; the Icelandic ambassador Tirsa Safirsdottir. Amicable to a point, got her job done with minimal fuss. If Herc didn’t like her, he did respect her for her dedication to her job; it was odd seeing her here now, alone after spotting her intermittently since that afternoon. She was a recent arrival with a band of other ambassadors and UN representatives, touring the Academy and discussing international training branches. She gave Taylor a withering look as they approached and Herc suddenly felt his regard jump up a few degrees.

                  “Marshall Hansen. I’ve been looking for you.”

                  “Madam Ambassador,” he said courteously. “A pleasure to see you.”

                  She shook his offered hand firmly, giving Taylor another look.

                  “I will return the Marshall to you in a moment,” she said. “If I may?”

                  “I was in the middle of discussing something with him.” Taylor made an indignant sound as Herc simply abandoned him, walking over to her side and giving Taylor a falsely polite glance.

                  “Just a moment, Representative.”

                  Taylor moved to protest and then simply glowered in resignation as ambassador and marshall alike turned from him, meandering down the hallway.

                  “Thank you for the interruption,” he said. The ambassador gave a soft laugh.

                  “Representative Taylor’s company is unpleasant in anything other than short doses,” she replied. “Though you might not be thanking me in a moment.”

                  She had a thick file in one hand that she handed over abruptly. Herc took it but didn’t open it, looking surprised.

                  “What is this?”

                  “There was a radio broadcast this morning that entailed a serious breach of security for my government,” Tirsa said. “A pirate radio station leaked information about a…situation, that both the Icelandic government and the PPDC have been working to contain. While I admit it was a well-researched, _professional_ leak of sensitive information, it was still released without sanction. The radio station itself claims to be Corps-aligned if not associated…”

                  Herc smiled ruefully before he could stop himself.

                  “Let me guess. Radio Free Jaeger.”

                  “So you are familiar with the station,” she said, expression taut with disapproval. “For now, that is of no concern. What _is_ the concern is what the station leaked to what we have since learned is a global stage. It’s all there for you, Marshall.”

                  He opened the folder, frowning at the stack of reports and copies of field notes. Everything had been translated for his benefit; he stopped walking as he skimmed one of the reports. Tirsa watched him silently as his face grew pale, lines of tension gathering around his eyes and the corners of his mouth. She stayed quiet as he pulled out a packet of photos, flipping through them rapidly.

                  “God,” he breathed. “There’s a damn _city_ in there.”

                  “The beginnings of one at least,” Tirsa said. “Perhaps it is not going to grow further up, but begin spreading outwards. It is growing _into_ the volcano. Hekla’s been processed into what our volcanologists are calling an enforced dormancy. It’s being used as _fuel._ ”

                  The reports and photos detailed a chilling sight. Twisting, spiny towers were developing in a valley that was seeming to pull itself open right next to the volcano, hundreds of feet down and growing daily. Thick lines of pipes wormed their way through soil and tapped into the base of the volcano proper, feeding into the bizarre structures.

                  “Geothermal power?” Herc asked. Tirsa nodded.

                  “Among other things. Samples from several of the towers show a mix of rare earths and…materials we cannot _begin_ to identify. The purpose of the structures themselves are a question as well. There’s a lab report that- yes, that one.”

                  Herc had pulled out a report that included magnified sample photos. He stared at it, baffled.

                  “They look like beetle shells,” he said.

                  “That is from a sample of semi-processed soil,” Tirsa replied. “They’re in the earth, Marshall. _Converting_ it.”

                  Herc’s mouth had gone dry. He put the lab report back carefully, looking at the ambassador.

                  “Why are you bringing this to me now? Some of these reports are dated back to the beginning of the month _._ ”

                  “My government’s steps to study and contain the location are faltering,” Tirsa said flatly. “There have been other branches and departments from scientific circles as well as the Corps brought in to bring it to heel, but after four weeks it has grown evident we cannot continue on as we have been. I have been requested to brief you, and to in turn request Doctor Newton Geiszler for the project.”

                  “Newt?” Herc asked, startled. “What do you think he can do?”

                  “Doctor Geiszler’s focus is K-Science, and all that that entails.” Tirsa’s lips pursed as she gave the file a long look. “He was asked for, specifically and by name. In light of his extensive experience with xenotechnology he was recommended as the best asset for the job.”

                  “He studies the _organic,_ not…whatever the hell this is,” Herc said.

                  “We have few options and fewer who understand xenotech in any degree,” Tirsa countered. “Would you have us continue to stumble ineffectually while that _city_ continues to raise itself?”

                  “Of course not,” Herc said, involuntarily flipping through the file until he found the lab report again. The miniscule, insect-like shells disturbed him, though he couldn’t say why. Maybe just the simple _idea_ of them rooting around in the dirt and processing it to their own designs was what sat wrong with him.

                  Or the idea that they could be anywhere else in the world, running rampant.

                  Swallowing hard, Herc forced his imagination to settle and tucked the file safely under his arm

                  “If I may…why wasn’t I informed of this earlier?”

                  Tirsa shook her head almost in irritation.

                  “As I said. Other branches of the Corps more suited for the task and notified before you. Your Shatterdome is typically in charge of Jaeger asset refurbishment and construction, not…deployments.”

                  “You make it sound like we’re an invasive force,” Herc said, a little too calmly. Tirsa gave a flat laugh.

                  “I do, don’t I. Iceland itself has no standing army despite its NATO status. It would be a mess on several fronts to remove an invader. But in this instance that is exactly what we must do, and my colleagues worry for the ramifications of allowing a full-fledged Corps operation of any degree digging in.”

                  “Ambassador-”

                  She held her hand up to silence him.

                  “I am aware of the rumors on both sides of the spectrum, Marshall,” she said. “The ones that claim you and yours are hunting down further conflict to justify your existence, and the ones that claim  - the one which I choose to _believe_ – that you are still the honorable protectors that stepped in when all else seemed lost.”

                  Her gaze was hard as she stared at him, her brows furrowed and every line in her tired face deepened almost like scars. Herc wondered if he looked even half so careworn.

                  “What the Corps feels about the United Nations isn’t a secret. The sentiment is echoed in public opinion that would gladly see the lot of us shunted off to the side to make room for the ones they feel protected them when no one else could. I’m _not_ saying mistakes were not made,” she said, her voice sharp as Herc moved to interrupt. “I have seen every decision since the beginning. I know better than most the depth and breadth of those mistakes. But if we are an evil, Marshall, I assure you we are a necessary one.”

                  “Every turn we took during the last legs of the war was hampered by red tape and bureaucracy,” Herc said. “And you’re telling me that was necessary?”

                  “The devil and the deep blue sea are unfortunate places for one to be caught between,” Tirsa said. “The Jaegers were failing. People were afraid. The economy has been _ruined,_ Marshall. The recession alone will take decades to recover from, if at all. On every front, things leaders are responsible for maintaining have been falling apart. We acted as best we could with what we had left.”

                  “The Walls-”

                  “Are the mistake that have brought about our downfall, one way or another.” Tirsa fell silent and Herc found he had nothing to say in response; it was true. He realized he truly didn’t know how the systems broken by the war would be fixed…but his purview was the recover of the Jaeger fleet, not the reestablishment of political balance. It made Lightcap’s earlier words ring even more loudly in the back of his mind. The overhanging sense of gathering power was heavy as a yoke.

                  “Ambassador,” he began. She nodded towards the folder in his hands, silencing him.

                  “ _That_ is your primary concern, Marshall. Nothing else. The situation is currently contained but the stability is tenuous at best. I must again request your K-Science lead to investigate…if the reports are to believed, his experience with things of this _nature_ are required.”

                  “I’ll notify him immediately,” Herc said. Tirsa’s worn expression eased the slightest bit.

                  “I am grateful for your cooperation in this matter,” she said. “Good afternoon, Marshall Hansen. If you should have the need, my contact information has been included for you.”

                  Herc nodded his farewells and busied himself reading as he went back towards Taylor, hoping to fend off any further conversation with him as the man lurked off to the side. As much as his respect had grudgingly risen by degrees for Tirsa Safirsdottir, that newfound esteem did not translate to her American colleague. Herc shook his head as Taylor opened his mouth, walking past him; Taylor followed doggedly, hurrying to keep in stride with the Marshall.

                  “As I was saying before-”

                  “It’s going to have to wait. I have more pressing concerns at the moment.”          

                  “The Hekla situation has been brewing for at least a month,” Taylor said. “You can take a moment to listen to-”

                  Herc cut him off with a hard look.

                  “I didn’t mention what it was about. You’ve _known_ about this?”

                  “I was given a broad briefing of the situation earlier in the week. The Icelandic government had been keeping it close to the chest before the leak,” Taylor replied. “There’s been other Corps involvement but the scale has tipped to a point where the need-to-know basis has grown more lenient.”

                  “Tirsa mentioned that involvement, but there’ve been no Jaeger deployments.”

                  “They’re not necessary in this instance. Iceland doesn’t even have any recorded breachling incursions, much less trouble that requires Jaeger presence.”

                  “So what _is_ there? The ambassador didn’t specify,” Herc said. He flipped through the folder’s contents again, studying the surveillance photos. The photos showed the growing fissure with disturbing detail, as though monstrous jaws were slowly stretching open over days and weeks. The spiky mess of towers and columns growing inside had started off ominous; it was cast mostly in shadow in the later photos, leaving much to the anxious imagination. Taylor was looking at the photos over Herc’s shoulder and he relented, passing them over.

                  “A containment team,” Taylor answered belatedly as he looked at the photos. “Hazardous material containment.”

                  “More suited for Kaiju Blue and carcass removal than whatever _this_ is, don’t you think?”

                  “Considering our only real experience with any materials the invaders leave behind were of the organic, rotting variety, the hazard teams are the best option we had on hand.”

                  It was hard to argue with that kind of logic; for all anyone knew, the Precursor shit growing down there could have been fully organic in nature. Taylor seemed gratified when Herc merely nodded his agreement.

                  “Doctor Geiszler’s presence isn’t much more than a token gesture to attempt and study the situation,” he continued. “Not unlike the containment teams, his expertise is more geared towards kaiju, not…”

                  “His input in this is a better lead to figuring out than just planting a fence around it and chasing off curious onlookers,” Herc said. “If this had been brought to my attention earlier we could’ve helped more.”

                  “And done what, precisely?”

                  Herc closed his eyes briefly and took in a breath; his patience dealing with politicians in any capacity had tapped out by mid-week, and he could already feel the beginnings of his familiar, daily tension headache building up behind his eyes.

                  “I don’t _know._ That’s Newton’s job now, and a hell of a lot good that does this late into the game. I understand not wanting to march in people unprepared, but this kind of disjointed operation can’t continue! The Shatterdomes are built to work in _conjunction_ , not a damned need-to-know basis!”

                  “The proper branches were notified. The Los Angeles  ‘dome may have a stockpile of war heroes ready to swing into action at the slightest provocation, Marshall, but that doesn’t mean we rely _solely_ on you.”

                  Herc gave Taylor a gimlet stare that was met with surprising evenness. For a moment he said nothing, his grip tightening on the thick folder.

                  “You’re so quick to dismiss everything we do,” he said. “What we _have_ done. My little stockpile of war heroes is the only reason there’s a world left for us at all.”

                  Taylor leaned close, testing Herc’s waning self-control.

                  “Be that as may, you are not the head of the Corps, Marshall,” Taylor muttered, his tone briefly cutting. “ _You_ are Marshall Pentecost’s stand-in replacement after he died to avoid a power vacuum. So when a decision or order is passed through to others within your organization without you knowing, _don’t_ take it as an affront to your imaginary status as leader.”

                  “So where was everyone else during the Second Wave?” Herc asked. Taylor stepped back and rolled his eyes with a scoff. “No. No, you look me in the eye and _answer_ me. Where the hell were they? Disbanded, scattered to the wind and trying to-”

                  “We both have better things to do than rehash the past, Marshall Hansen. It’s done and over with. We have a new set of problems that needs Corps attention, and now that you’re relevant to the situation we’ve let you know.” Taylor looked at his watch, frowning deeply. “And as we are parting ways very soon, I’d like to finish debriefing you before we leave.”

                  It was so hard not to simply turn away and stalk down the hallway, away from Taylor and the political bullshit that clogged the Anchorage Shatterdome up until it was suffocating. Herc could feel a burning knot of anger and intense dislike tight in his chest; for a moment he wished he could simply haul off and punch Taylor in the face. But of course he wouldn’t. He was a Marshall, Taylor was a United Nations representative – and no matter how far Taylor had fallen in public grace, he was still above Herc. The unspoken acknowledgement of that ugly fact translated into Herc’s stony silence and full attention, staring at Taylor. It was gratifying at least to see him shift uncomfortably under such intense scrutiny.

                  “As the Corps reestablishes itself as a global power, it needs overseeing,” he said. He sifted through his bundle of folders, pulling out a personnel file and handing it to Herc. “This schism between us is a show of instability that many will look to exploit. On _both_ sides. As a show of cooperation several UN liasions are being assigned to different Shatterdomes….this individual is to be yours.”

                  Herc took the folder and gave the front page a cursory glance. He froze, staring at the ID photo clipped to it, then up at Taylor.

                  “This is deliberate,” he said, voice grating. “Don’t you dare say otherwise.”

                  To his credit, Taylor didn’t look smug or amused with Herc’s response. He shook his head slowly, mouth twisting in an expression that on anyone else could have been apologetic.

                  “He was part of the original team at the Corps’ inception. The only people more senior than him to the war effort are Caitlin Lightcap and Jasper Schoenfeld. His work contributed to the backbone of J-Tech development, which your ‘dome _does_ specialize in.”

                  “I won’t allow it. I will not _allow_ this placement, and I am well within my power to dispute it. Get me someone _else!”_

His temper had slipped and his voice echoed in a shout down the hallway. Herc shoved the file back at Taylor, its contents slipping and falling to the floor. Taylor waited until Herc had calmed somewhat, bending down to gather the sheets He studied the ID photo, and his almost-apologetic expression grew a bit more distinct.

                  “It was a unanimous decision,” he said. “But it wasn’t a belligerent one.”

                  “It will compromise my Shatterdome.”

                  “That is an exaggeration,” Taylor said, the apologetic look sharpening to impatience. “We are all expected to make concessions in times of war and in times of vigilance.”

                  “And I am _unwilling_ to make this concession for you,” Herc spat. “Are you assigning him to us because it’s to the UN’s benefit, or because you can’t afford to be seen in public with him anymore?”

                  “Your Shatterdome is-”

                  “Being used as a dumping ground for an embarrassment you can no longer afford.”

                  Taylor’s watch alarm gave a cheerful jingling beep. He looked down at the time and sighed, unable to meet Herc’s eyes.

                  “You can believe whatever you like, Marshall. You can contest and dispute to your heart’s content until another placement can be arranged. But for the meantime…he is your designated UN presence. He’ll be departing with you tonight.”

                  “Just had him stashed in a back corner to break out at the last minute, then?”

                  Taylor said nothing to that; he held out the file to Herc again, offering no further apology or explanation. Herc glowered at him and ripped the file out his hand, shoving it and the Hekla report under his arm and walking away without another word.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

                  The flight out of Anchorage was scheduled to leave by 9 o’clock that evening. Herc had put off leaving as long as he could, but by the fifth round of his own watch alarm ringing he knew he couldn’t dawdle any longer. The car to take him to the airport was sidling by the curb as Herc had jogged out of the main building, the barely-masked looks of irritation from the driver taken in stride. He ducked into the spacious back seat, taking care to buckle himself in and look everywhere but at the passenger sitting beside him.

                  Herc stared pointedly out the window as the car pulled away from the curb and out the Shatterdome’s secured front entrance, indulging his anger by letting the close space grow more and more uncomfortable by the second. By the time the car had reached the highway the air was thick enough for a knife to saw through. He considered asking the driver to put on the radio; the Hekla file was stashed in the briefcase sitting over his lap, the transcripts of Radio Free Jaeger’s public broadcast of classified information still waiting for him to review.

                  His companion cleared their throat. Herc drummed his fingers against his briefcase, gradually turning away from the window to look at them.

                  “It is a pleasure to see you again, Marshall Hansen,” Lars Gottlieb said. “I look forward to working with you.”

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

                  The stench in the lab was atrocious. Gottlieb stood at the doorway and stared at the sample strewn from one end of Newt’s half the space to the other, a hand pressed against his face and his mouth watering as he tried not to gag.

                  “Newton,” he said. It was the only word he could manage before the smell seemed to crawl into his mouth like a miasma, leaving a metallic taste that only encouraged the gag further. Newt was covered in protective garments that were spattered with a strange, syrupy fluid, and when he approached the smell grew worse. Gottlieb shook his head urgently and fell back a step, almost forcibly pushed away by the clinging reek.

                  “You’ll wanna either take really deep breaths so you can get used to it faster or just clear out for the next few hours,” Newt said. “There was another popping incident.”

                  “You said you knew how to _prevent_ that!”

                  “For the specimens that came out from the Sonoran, yeah. Not so the Dead Sea mutant clan.”

                  Gottlieb gestured at Newt’s dirty surgeon’s smock and liquid-spattered face shield, looking disgusted.

                  “You didn’t even change?”

                  “Dude, are you kidding me? I’ve changed like, _three_ times today. They’re getting grosser just for spite,” Newt said. His sunny enthusiasm irked Gottlieb immensely and it showed; Newt grinned in response, shrugging. “Hey, get mad at the Precursors, not me. I didn’t make ‘em.”

                  “No, but the joy you take in chopping them apart doesn’t do much to recommend you.” Gottlieb fished his handkerchief from an inner jacket pocket and pressed it firmly against his face. It did nothing to ease the smell but acted as encouraging enough of a placebo for Gottlieb to dare entering the lab.

                  “For the love of…. _where_ is the tiger balm.”

                  “Second drawer in my desk. Don’t hog all of it this time.”

                  Gottlieb muttered darkly and took the tiny bottle of ointment from Newt’s desk, smearing a generous helping of it under his nose and inhaling deeply to mask the stench. How Tendo had known to tip them off about the tiger balm’s nearly miraculous ability to kill kaiju-related odors, Gottlieb didn’t know. He knew only that he owed the man his life at this rate.

                  “ _Please_ tell me you’re almost done with this thing.”

                  “You’re in luck, today’s specimen tank day.”

                  Gottlieb sat at his desk, glowering at the sample. It had been brought in an egg alongside the other preserved specimens after the Dead Sea cleanup mission, and Newt had spent painstaking hours chipping at the thick shell and removing the creature within. Every clutch but one had been completely destroyed, leaving the samples for study – one for Newt, and the rest carted off to Pitcairn Island for dissection, cataloging and storage. Gottlieb wished wholeheartedly this little monster had been dispatched alongside its brethren.

                  The breachlings from the Dead Sea colony were adapted for heat, sparse food and the extreme salt content of the Sea’s waters. Like all breachlings they had evolved independently and with startling speed to survive in their territory, advancing themselves in months what would naturally take sometimes thousands of years. The evidence of their hyper-adaptability was a source of constant joy for Newt; he had been thrilled to find salt tracks crusted on the face of the adult sample, lecturing Gottlieb for the better part of an hour about how animals like sea turtles excreted excess salts to keep themselves healthy.

                  While the lecture had been rather interesting, Gottlieb truly hadn’t needed to see the salt glands Newt dug out of the sample for emphasis.

                  “Honestly, can’t wait for some better samples,” Newt said. “These things are wonky as fuck.”

“Really? What’s so off about them?”

                  Newt pointed at once to the infant breachling’s eyes; there were six of them, but only two were clear and well formed. The rest had a peculiar mutation that stretched the iris across the wide pupils in a web, deforming it so completely Gottlieb doubted it would have been able to see at all.

                  “What happened to it?”

                  “Inbreeding is gross,” Newt said matter-of-factly. “Isolated in a single colony without any fresh outside genes to add into the mix? You end up with _that._ ”

                  Gottlieb gave the breachling a repulsed look, making Newt laugh.

                  “I know, right? Even if the hunting crew hadn’t found that colony they would’ve bred themselves to death within a couple generations. All the malignant mutations packed into one gross package. It’s too bad, really…these guys could’ve been a hardy bunch _._ ”

                  “Is that a note of reverence I hear in your tone?” Gottlieb asked. Newt chuckled. “I thought so. Starry-eyed over the newest breed of monster. How unsurprising.”

                  “Pot, kettle, black. I heard you fawning over that AI with Caitlin during your last vid-call.”

                  “The AI is a joint effort,” Gottlieb said primly. “We’re both very proud of it. It’s not _fawning.”_

                  “You are two steps short of putting that thing through the Turing test and asking it to marry you.”

                  “I…” Gottlieb sighed. “Alright. Point taken.”

                  Newt grinned and turned back to the breachling samples, cheerfully labeling parts. Gottlieb left him to it, limping back to his side of the lab; the awful smell was more bearable with the tiger balm though Newt could tell the burn of it was bothering him. The sooner the specimen was filed away, the better.

                  “So the test went well?”

                  “Fair to middling. We have some synchronization issues.”

                  “Yeah?” Newt glanced over when Gottlieb didn’t elaborate; there was an annoyed cast to his expression Newt had long since learned to associate with work not going well. “And…?”

                  “It thinks too fast. A command sent through the AI after Drift interfacing is supposed to translate naturally.”

                  “Right. So…meaning what?”

                  “The mind expects the body to react at the same speed it thinks. Right now…say if a pilot wanted to raise their arm. The Jaeger would attempt to comply and react _so_ quickly the limb would likely dislocate itself.”

                  Newt gave a low whistle.

                  “Shit.”

                  “Precisely. But other than that the installation went swimmingly.”

                  “Uh huh. Well…that’s…hm.”

                  “Work in progress,” Gottlieb said firmly, looking back to his computer. “By the time the next generation of Jaegers are completed there will be an AI suitable for their needs ready to be installed.”

                  “It’s gonna be weird having them around,” Newt said. Gottlieb frowned at him. “It will be. All this hardware and all the new pilots and there’s no war for them to fight in. Just…kinda hanging out, doing giant robot stuff. You don’t find that weird?”

                  “Not particularly, no. We keep _you_ around, don’t we?”

                  “Oh wow,” Newt said blandly. “You got me there, dude.”

                  “Everything has its uses.”

                  “Yeah, yeah…but your exploratory models are getting a lot more usage than the combat series, don’t you think?”

                  “I have to hope so. I’d hate to see us turning against each other now that the threat of invasion no longer lingers,” Gottlieb murmured, half to himself. “Such a waste.”

                  “Marshall did say the Academy was gonna be branching out into different venues,” Newt said.

                  “He did. Half of that visit to Anchorage was to discuss new campus options.” Gottlieb frowned again, flicking the computer screens aside one by one until he found the intranet email program. No new messages blinked for attention in his inbox. “Wasn’t he supposed to be back this evening?”

                  “Thought so, yeah. Los Angeles is kind of a straight shot out from Alaska, isn’t it?”

                  “I’d assume so…no word from anyone about his arrival. I’d have thought something would have been notifying us by now.”

                  Newt shrugged, more interested in his sample labeling. Gottlieb refreshed the layer of tiger balm under his nose, his eyes watering slightly at the burn and trying to focus on his own work. Soon enough they both became absorbed by their tasks, working silently in their own separate worlds.

 

* * *

 

                  The Marshall didn’t return that evening and there was no announcement for his arrival the next day. This didn’t particularly worry Newt; Herc was in a constant state of demand in a dozen places at any given moment, and his absence was likely due to some unavoidable meeting that would have Herc looking murderous and exhausted by the time he finally escaped. Newt couldn’t help but feel bad for the Marshall lately…Herc never came out and _said_ he hated his job, but there were only so many times a guy could be cloistered in his office looking at paperwork before the position started to chafe.

Sympathy for Herc’s woes aside, Newt was feeling pretty damn good lately. A steady supply of new things to study, the world not ending, not going crazy from the remnants of kaiju Drifting – it was amazing how one’s outlook could remain positive when their life wasn’t falling apart under the threat of total annihilation. He bolted down his breakfast and left the barracks whistling cheerfully, eager for the day’s work. Gottlieb had left much earlier in the morning to do…well, to do _something._ Newt could hardly make sense of the work on Gottlieb’s side anymore. As long as it didn’t devolve into the Jaegers gaining sentience and escaping the Shatterdome in pursuit of world domination, he supposed it was fine.

“Excuse me? Doctor Geiszler?”

Newt blinked, jarred out of his thoughts to find a LOCCENT-uniform wearing tech walking in stride with him. He waved.

“Hi, um…” He squinted at the tech’s name tag. “Cody…Valance. Who I think I’ve never met.”

“You haven’t, sir,” Cody said. “I was headed to the lab to find you, actually. Marshall Hansen was requesting a meeting.”

Newt gave him a surprised look; Cody turned to another corridor and Newt followed suit, trying to keep up.

“The Marshall’s back? Why didn’t we get any kind of notification? He could’ve just emailed me about it-”

“Your guess is as good as mine, sir. Rug’s getting pulled out from everyone. Last night I was a LOCCENT data entry specialist, and this morning all of a sudden I’m on the Marshall’s new assistant staff.”

He pointed down the corridor somewhat unnecessarily; Newt had been to Herc’s office dozens of times, able to navigate the Shatterdome’s labyrinthine halls with somewhat more ease in the past months.

“He said it was urgent, sir. Better hurry.”

“Um, sure…thanks.”

As soon as he was sure Newt was headed the right way Cody took off in a separate direction. Newt didn’t envy the kid his new position; Herc’s absolute aversion to office work and any kind of organization therein was notorious through the entire complex. Worried by the unexplained urgency, Newt hustled down the corridor and went to knock on the door of Herc’s office, only to find it already yawning open. Herc was sitting down at his desk with his head propped up on one hand, his suit jacket lying in a heap in the desk already in total disarray with new folders and files everywhere. Newt watched him uncomfortably, unsure how to announce his presence – the Marshall seemed ready to collapse in on himself, and it was an unnerving sight.

“Marshall Hansen?”

Newt’s soft question made Herc jump; he straightened up at once and got up from his desk, waving Newt inside.

“Doctor Geiszler. Sorry to hurry you in like this,” he said. Newt waved a dismissive hand.

“Don’t worry about it, sir. Glad to see you back. Does everybody else know?”

“Not yet. Had to get settled in and arrange a few…doesn’t matter. Had to get back on track quickly is all,” Herc said. His tone was clipped and his expression showed a strange restrained anger that put Newt instantly on edge, but he didn’t dare ask about it. “Come in, come in. Sit down.”

Newt had to move a pile of folders off the chair to sit, setting them carefully on the floor. Herc slapped another one on the desk and pushed it towards Newt, scowling faintly.

“Marching orders. There’s a situation out in Iceland needing your immediate attention, Doctor. All other projects are on the wayside while you head out to the field.”

The abruptness doubled Newt’s uneasiness, and he didn’t take the folder.

“Iceland, sir?”

“They’re terming it a ‘ _xenotechnological incursion’_. Can’t tell if it’s an oversimplification or a label they’ve created just for this kind of incident.”

Newt flicked the folder open and was greeted with an aerial photo of the half-built city dug into the valley. His mouth hung open and he picked the photo up gingerly.

“Sir,” he began, voice choked. He recognized that architecture…shells of metal looking almost _grown_ , cast in forms of chitinous shells and towers like spinal columns. He had seen too much of how and what the Precursors built. The city looked like something straight from nightmares he had long put behind him.

                  “It’s not what you think,” Herc said quietly. “Nothing like that. They’ve had crews of biohazard containment in that place for nearly a month with no sign of other habitation. It’s a ghost city building itself.”

                  Newt put the photo down as though it was something dirty, pressing back into his chair and giving Herc a disbelieving look.

                  “Where… _how?_ ”

                  “It’s all there in your file. Quite frankly I’m surprised you don’t already know about it.”

                  “All due respect sir, but that’s not exactly a frequency I’m tuned into anymore.”

                  Herc grinned with the faintest shade of real amusement.

                  “As it turns out it isn’t the invader’s broadcast you should’ve been listening for. Something a bit closer to home leaked the information…that’s the only reason the Icelandic government notified anyone at all. They’ve been trying to contain it on their own for the better part of a month before that pirate radio station broadcast national secrets to everybody.”

                  Newt didn’t share Herc’s paper-thin good humor, staring at the photo again.

                  “I think a couple bombing sweeps might’ve _contained_ it just fine.”

                  “I’m inclined to agree. But that’s not what they want. They want _you_ , and soon. They need a xenotech expert to help out with the research effort.”

                  “Well they better go and find one, huh? I’m xeno- _biology._ _Kind_ of.”

                  “You’ve got six doctorates, one of them’s got to be something close to what they’re looking for.”

                  Newt finally did laugh, very incredulously.

                  “I have _one_ doctorate and five honorary degrees, sir. And I don’t think all the certifications in the world are gonna help with studying the volcano-city from space hell.”

                  “You never know,” Herc said. He held his hands up in appeal, frowning deeply. “I’m sorry, Newt. I don’t like the situation any more than you do…a lot of people are waiting to go over my head about this and get you out there. At least it isn’t another Pitcairn Island situation.”

                  “Not much of a confidence builder, sir.”

                  Herc’s jaw set, his brows furrowing with a sharp annoyance Newt knew he was trying to keep from coming out. This was clearly an argument he had been anticipating but the patience with it was waning too fast; Newt gave a deep sigh, slowly closing the folder and pulling it off the desk.

                  “It’s empty?” he asked. “Really?”

                  “Entirely self-created and maintained. Whatever tech is building it, there’s no one at the helm directing.”

                  There was a long beat of silence between them as Newt stared at the folder; he eventually nodded slowly, looking back up at the Marshall.

                  “Okay.”

                  Herc gave him a slight, tired smile.

                  “Good. Thank you, Doctor.”

                  “Don’t go thanking me yet….probably won’t even be worth the trip to go out there. And Hermann has to stay behind while I go on another field trip, huh?”

                  “ _No_.”

                  The word was barked so sharply Newt fell back a step, his hands up in almost reflexive apology. Herc winced, looking embarrassed.

                  “I mean…no, he won’t be staying behind. Good for morale to keep you together,” he said. Newt gave him a baffled look and he plowed on before he could be interrupted. “The last time you two were separated was a different situation. Doctor Gottlieb will be accompanying you this time around .”

                  “He’s got his own work, though…how’s he going to keep up with the AI project in the field?”

                  “He’ll manage.”

                  “I have the vaguest feeling you’re not telling me everything, sir.” Herc leveled a cool look on Newt. He took it in stride, shrugging.  “Am I wrong?”

                  The cool look wavered and Herc’s head dropped down briefly, worn-out nerves and depleted patience getting the best of him.

                  “All you need to know is that you and Doctor Gottlieb will be out in Iceland,” he said. “And that is all I’ll say on the matter. Will you leave it at that?”

                  “I…yes sir,” Newt said, though he looked uncertain. Herc either didn’t notice or was strictly pretending not to, looking away.

                  “Excellent. I’ll have the itinerary forwarded to you both. Good afternoon, Doctor Gesizler.”

                  Newt slid quickly out of the chair and hurried out of the office, uneasy and confused. The folder felt like a lead weight in his hands, its contents unwelcome news he truly didn’t want to dig into….and to think, less than twenty minutes ago he had been feeling safe and happy. He sighed, picturing Gottlieb’s face at the news. If the universe was merciful there would at least be a decent WiFi signal wherever they ended up, or Gottlieb would probably pitch a complete fit. He half-jogged back to the lab, winded by the time he got there and leaning against the door with a stitch stabbing between his ribs.

                  “Hermann-” he puffed. “ _Shit_ , I’m out of shape – Hermann, we- this is seriously fu-”

                  “ _Newton!_ ”

                  Gottlieb’s voice was so light and falsely cheerful it made Newt cringe; he looked up and made a sharp, strange noise, as though all the air had been knocked out of him, driving all thought of the strange city from his mind. Gottlieb sat rigid at his desk, a smile more like a rictus fixed to his face. And standing next to his desk was a grey-haired, pinch-faced older man, looking at Newt as though biting back a scolding remark for interrupting what had to be the world’s most uncomfortable conversation. No wonder Gottlieb looked ready to explode. Where in the _hell_ had they dredged up-

                  “Doctor…uh…Gottlieb,” Newt said, voice cracking. “Hey.”

Lars inclined his head slightly.

                  “Doctor Geiszler,” he said, tone clipped. Gottlieb pushed away from his desk, seizing his cane and limping towards Newt with that dreadful forced smile, his eyes narrowed to slits.

                  “Newton,” he repeated. “Isn’t this…isn’t this something. My father’s here.”

                  “Dude, are you okay?” Newt asked in an undertone. “Please don’t flip out.”

                  “Hm? Oh! Oh, no. No, Newton. I’m fine. I’m fine.” Gottlieb leaned close, his voice a strained hiss. “ _Make up an excuse. Right. Now.”_

“Hermann, we were in the middle of a discussion.”

                  “Just a moment!”

                  The pleasant tone was so obviously, awfully forced Newt couldn’t imagine for a second Lars thought it was anything but fake. It seemed to be causing Gottlieb physical pain to keep up the charade.

                  “I just…um. Sorry, Doctor, uh….Doctor Gottlieb. Just need to…”

                  Lars was staring at him; it made his skin crawl. He grabbed Gottlieb’s arm and pulled him out of the lab quickly, desperate to escape before Lars could stop them. Gottlieb stopped short and leaned against the wall, pressing a hand to his face in utter exhaustion.

                  “Holy shit,” Newt said. “Holy shit and a half. What? _What?_ ”

                  “I know,” Gottlieb muttered.

                  “ _Where?”_

“I don’t know. In with the Marshall like an ill wind, apparently.”

                  “But- how did- WHY-?”

                  “Full sentences, Newton.”

                  Newt took a deep breath, enunciating slowly and carefully.

                  “What. The _fuck._ ”

                  Gottlieb shrugged. Newt’s bewilderment faded and he grabbed at Gottlieb’s shoulder, giving him a gentle shake.

                  “Hey…Hermann, you okay?”

                  The angry look Gottlieb gave him was a little too sharp; Newt let go, chastised.

                  “What do _you_ think?” he snapped. Newt mumbled under his breath, giving a shrug of his own. “Exactly. That….that _man,_ just, just _traipsed_ in and started on me like it was an interrogation before I could even process he was _THERE,_ and here I was thinking all this time the damned walls would start weeping blood to herald him coming back around and-”

                  He paused, choking on his words and trailing off into a furious splutter. Newt was wide-eyed, afraid to say anything; Gottlieb pressed his hand back to his face and gasped, looking pale.

                  “Oh, jeez…Hermann, c’mon. We’re good…we’re good. C’mon.”

                  “I’m fine,” Gottlieb said. “I do not need _coddling_ , I just need…just need to collect myself. I’m fine.”             

                  “What the hell did he _say_ to you?”

                  “Does it matter?”

                  “You look ready to drop from an aneurysm. I’d say it kinda matters.”

                  “It doesn’t,” Gottlieb muttered. He gave Newt a dark look. “I can hardly recall the conversation anyway. Once he started speaking all I heard was this…peculiar rushing sound in my ears. All the blood just seemed to rush to my head and drowned him out.”

                  “Couple decades of repressed rage coming to a boil?”

                  “Perhaps.”

                  He laughed humorlessly.

                  “Unbelievable. I’ve not spoken to him since he left…how many years has it been? Six? Seven?”

                  “Should be just around six by now,” Newt said quietly. “You okay?”

                  “No. No, I’m not. And I’ll be having a word with the Marshall about this. How could he not have _said_ anything about this? What was he thinking?”

                  Gottlieb growled in frustration, then gave Newt a sidelong look.

                  “What did you come running in for, anyway? Did something happen?”

                  Newt’s heart plummeted, and he gave Gottlieb a bleak grin.

                  “Yeah, um. About that...”

                 

                 

 


	6. Chapter 6

                 Tendo wasn’t sure what was fueling the Shatterdome’s rumor mill more; the alien city raising itself out of a volcano, or the fact that Lars was wandering around the halls trying to justify his presence doing performance reviews and observing department meetings. It wasn’t very professional and Tendo knew he had no excuse for staying away from LOCCENT – hell, it was actively stressing him out not to be at his post - but the prospect of having Gottlieb Senior breathing down his neck for the better part of the morning was not suffering he wanted to inflict on himself. It worried him a bit that he was more concerned about Lars than the city; but then, it was far away, supposedly empty and under heavy military guard. It seemed as though the lesser of two evils had been more thoroughly contained.

                  “You can’t skulk in here forever, you know.”

                  “It’s not skulking. I’m being _helpful._ ”

                  Mako held her hand out expectantly; Tendo rummaged in the toolbox beside him on the workbench and handed her a socket wrench, which she exchanged at once for a tiny screwdriver. He examined the wrench critically, nodding before putting it back in the box.

                  “Tool quality check. Vital stuff, Mako. Can’t shirk on it.”

                  “Thank goodness you’re here to do it, then. I never would have thought to.”

                  “I’ll let it slide this time,” he said. “Next time I might have to file a report, though.”

                  Mako gave him a patient look and went back to the mass of machinery she had been tinkering with. Tendo had taken shelter in her workshop over an hour ago, handing off tools when asked and simply watching her work; the machine currently being tinkered with had a shape vaguely like an engine block, threaded through with cabled bundles of wires. Tendo had never seen a synapse communication hub so advanced before. Lightcap and Gottlieb’s AI revamps had called for a complete reworking of the human interfaces with the Jaeger’s digital brain.

                  “Who’s gonna get this one?” he asked. Mako didn’t answer at first, carefully screwing a panel into place before pointing at a rolled-up blueprint on the counter next to him. Tendo smoothed it out, pinning the corners with a mallet and dirty coffee mug. The Jaeger had a vaguely familiar silhouette but hadn’t been given a name yet, marked only by its series production number.

                  “This guy could do some serious damage,” he murmured. Mako made a small noise of agreement.

                  “It was the flagship design for the demolition line before that proposal was shelved,” she said. “It’s been repurposed for the combat series instead.”

                  Something in her tone made Tendo glance over at her; she seemed carefully neutral, circling the hub and keeping her gaze fixed on it.

                  “You don’t talk too much about the Sixes,” he said.

                  “There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said over the last few months. Intake, refurbish, deploy.”

                  “Yeah, but…” Tendo rolled up the blueprint again and set it aside, leaning back against the counter. “Something on your mind?”

                  She finally met his eyes, smiling slightly. Tendo stared at her with such exaggerated pointedness it made her laugh.

                  “I am not laying my own worries onto you. You are already going grey from your own.”

                  Tendo balked, putting a hand to his hair at once.

                  “Bite your _tongue_ , Miss Mori.”

                  “It’s true. I can see them from here.”

                  “I am _not-_ okay, that is below the belt.”

                  “Is it so bad?” Mako asked, deceptively sweet. “It makes you look refined.”

                  “Or antiquated,” Tendo muttered. Mako waved him off and turned her attention back to the hub. She picked up a pair of needle nose pliers and fussed with a wire bundle more for the sake of keeping her hands busy than really doing maintenance; recovered from his mortal insult, Tendo could tell she was trying to keep the Mark Six subject out of the conversation. After the initial success restoring Chrome Brutus – God rest the poor thing, torn to irreparable shreds and scrapped for all the viable parts she’d had left – Mako had been the one championing the revival program and arranging all the work to salvage Oblivion Bay.

                  “So…” Mako turned her head slightly towards him, eyes still on her work. “Mako. C’mon. What’s bothering you?”

                  “It is not-”

                  “If you say it’s ‘not important’ it’s just gonna confirm you’re lying.”

                  “How can I lie if I’m not saying anything?”

                  “Omission of the truth, lying, whatever. Quit it. I’m handling being stressed to capacity better lately, whatever’s got you in a funk isn’t going to bother me.”

                  She sighed, setting the pliers down and turning to hoister herself onto the worktable to sit. She studied her hands, stained with unknowable substances that left traces of blue and red. She rubbed her thumb over a splotch of murky blue, trying to clean it off.

                  “The combat series has been receiving a great deal of extra attention recently. Things that were meant for more constructive purposes are being sent to me instead,” she said abruptly. “Doctor Gottlieb’s Seven series has been cut in half in order to fund the restoration program.”

                  “ _What?_ The Sevens only have four proposed models!”

                  “And now it is officially down to two. The other designs are on hold indefinitely.”

                  “Does Hermann know?”

                  “Not in an official capacity,” Mako muttered. “But he can guess well enough.”

                  “When did this all happen, anyway? Did Doctor Gottl- did his _dad_ do that? Jesus merciful _Christ,_ the guy can’t stop defunding Jaeger shit to save his life, can he?”

                  “I do not believe his father had a hand in it. He’s little more than a figurehead these days, and an unpopular one at that.” Mako slid off the worktable, dusting her coverall pants off and frowning at a puddle of synapse transmitter fluid that had pooled on the floor, leaking from a hose that had come loose on the hub. Tendo passed her a very stained hand towel and she simply flung it over the puddle to soak up.

                  “That _has_ to be a health hazard.”

                  “Only if you ingest it. Or get it in your eyes.”

                  “Reassuring,” Tendo said dryly. “Okay, so Emperor Palpatine didn’t cut the explorer series in half. Who did?”

                  “The ones who control the coffers, as it has always been. We’re just the ones that keep saving the world, not controlling it.”

                  “That wouldn’t be such a bad change of pace,” Tendo said sourly. Mako gave him a look so sharp he backed up, instantly chastised. “Whoa. Sorry. Just pissed, that’s all.”

                  Her expression eased and she looked almost sheepish.

                  “I…I know. Please excuse me.”

                  “I spoke out of turn.” Tendo simply shook his head when Mako moved to protest. “When did all this happen, anyway?”

                  “It’s been gradual. Requisitions meant for the Sevens ending up on my shipment manifests instead…training for the Sevens being postponed or outright cancelled. The Corps is in full support of only one kind of Jaeger, it seems.”

                  “So the Sevens they’re allowing to be built are…what? Consolation prizes?”

                  “Maybe. Once the restoration program is completed they won’t have any more excuses to cut corners on his series in favor of mine.”

                  “Unless they want brand new ones next, you mean.” Tendo stared at the synapse hub, not really seeing it. “Newt said a while back that the reason we started losing the war was because we stopped adapting. We hit a peak and couldn’t go further…meanwhile the kaiju were getting bigger and meaner. The organic was evolving faster than the mechanical.”

                  “There are concerns the breachlings will outstrip our ability to contain them,” Mako admitted. “They replenish their numbers too quickly and adapt to nearly anything.”

                  “But they’re tiny. And they’re _dumb._ There’s nothing in them that even suggests a hive mind. They see something move and they kill it, that’s all they’re wired for.”

                  “Does it matter whether or not they are conscious thinkers, as long as they can destroy a target?” Mako bent down and picked up the sopping wet towel, balling it up and throwing it into a bin stuffed with dirty coveralls; the residue stuck to her hands in a gluey film and she went to the mop sink to try and scrub it off. “Has that _ever_ mattered?”

                  “When it was one at a time, I guess not,” Tendo said. “But we don’t get the luxury of single events anymore.”

                  “I hesitate to call that a luxury.”

                  “Predictability, then. Uh…well. _Tenuous_ predictability. Now there’s whole herds of the bastards out there…” Tendo sighed, the realization dawning unwillingly. “Ugh. That really is the rhyme and reason, isn’t it? Don’t explore the world until you’re sure it’s not infested with creepy mindless death-lizards.”

                  Mako gave a sudden snort of laughter, head ducking down as she tried to hide it. Tendo grinned.

                  “I heard that.”

                  “You did _not._ ”

                  “Aw, c’mon. I know Raleigh makes you laugh once in a while, I don’t get to?”

                  She flicked water at him, making him duck before it could get in his hair.

                  “Raleigh is my Drift partner and co-pilot,” she said mildly. “He has the privilege.”

                  “Yeah, yeah. Us lesser peons just stand in awe of your austerity and grace.”

                  “Austere and graceful…yes, I like that.”

                  She gave the hub one last look-over, grabbing the leaky hose and reconnecting it before any more fluid could dribble out. Tendo handed her a roll of duct tape unasked and she sealed it up tight.

                  “When in doubt,” Tendo said. Mako shrugged.

                  “It’s kept more things together than I would like to admit. It will hold until morning at least.”   

                  “So that’s it? Where you headed now?” Mako gave him a wry look; he clasped his hands together, pleading. “Don’t make me go back in there. Have mercy.”

                  “You can come with me, but I have to be on the bay floor. He’ll be able to see you out the window.”

                  Tendo made an agonized sound that was half-earnest, following her out the door.

                  “Fine. Throw me to the wolves.” She gave him a loose hug with one arm, pulling him along. “When I’m fired I get to lay the blame solely on you.”

                  “I can live with that.”

                  “Raleigh’ll give you grief over it…where _is_ he, anyway?”                 

 

* * *

 

 

                  The bed was a mess of paper scraps and loose pages. Raleigh sat in the midst of it all, a blanket thrown over his shoulders like a cloak as he pored over stack after stack of photos, trying to decide what he wanted the scrapbook theme to be. His small quarters, already slightly claustrophobic when they were clean, felt even more enclosed as the mess of his haphazard hobby littered the floor and his desk, the excess spilled over from the bed. It was Mako who had originally suggested organizing the photos he had accrued – it had seemed like such a _simple_ idea at the time. Who knew taking up scrapbooking would be this complicated?

                  The holo-screen TV on the opposite wall was playing some public access show for the sake of background noise as he worked. Raleigh listened to it with half an ear, the host chattering pleasantly about victory garden planting and maintenance. He doubted he’d ever need the knowledge personally, but at least it was interesting.  He shuffled through several old photos of Jaegers he’d taken back in his Academy days, setting them aside gently. Maybe if he was lucky he could find pictures he’d taken of their pilots. He’d been somewhat obnoxious with his photography when he was younger; Yancy had tried to hide the camera from him more than once to get him to be _slightly_ less embarrassing in front of their fellow Rangers. Raleigh smiled, glancing at the Jaeger pile fondly.

                  The credits for the gardening show were rolling, a static-ridden choral tune heralding the next program. Raleigh ignored it at first, but winced at the sudden loud crash of a gong being struck. He looked up and blinked at the harsh wash of an acid blue title screen, fading to a priest standing behind a plain wooden pulpit, the sound cutting out over the obnoxious gonging as the man talked. Raleigh groaned; none of the basic stations would play their broadcasts, so of course the BuenaKai would resort to public access television.

                    _“-in today’s sermon, I would speak to you about doubt.”_

Raleigh looked down at the piles again, annoyed. Maybe he could just tune the TV out…

“ _It is in human nature to doubt and question. But it is the nature of the divine to forgive humanity for the frailty of its resolve, its fallibility. What is a God but a source of compassion? What is a following but those who have faith through the trials of doubt? What, then, are we in our doubt? Is it not when we DOUBT that we see most objectively, to choose between enlightenment and ignorance?”_

The priest stared hard at the camera. The stylized tattoos of eyes that whorled over his face gave him an unsettling appearance in the dim light of his stage, the blue and green candles around the pulpit and altar behind him making the grey, fuzzy shadows writhe. Raleigh frowned at the screen, fumbling through the blankets for the remote.

                  “C’mon…dammit, I just _had_ it, where’d it go?”

                  _“It is doubt that is the greatest gift, tempering us. When the Breach opened and the emissaries of heaven descended, bringing with them the glory of a God whose wrath was their greatest act of compassion…was the loss of San Francisco not the first trial of the faithful? Were we not brought to DOUBT- to doubt the existence of any God, that in the path of such destruction humanity was of any importance at all?”_

“Ugh, shut _up…_ ” Raleigh cursed as his semi-neat photo piles were upset by the growing desperation of the remote hunt; he growled in annoyance and simply grabbed one of his boots off the floor, chucking it at the holo-screen. It hit the power button hard and the screen winked out.

                  “That’ll teach you.” He shrugged off the blanket with a sigh and slid off the bed to clean up. The silence after the priest’s escalating fervor was relieving. BuenaKai made him uncomfortable at the best of times; he had never been able to make such sense of them, and the ones that remained these days had a zealous faith that made his skin crawl. He glanced over at the clock and clucked his tongue, ditching the photos in a pile he would have to reorganize all over again as he hurried to get dressed.

                 There wasn’t much for him to do around the ‘dome that didn’t include Kwoon training or Jaeger test runs with Mako. It left him with more free time than he would have liked, and not being on call for work encouraged him to find it himself. He was due this morning for a volunteer shift over one of the half-scrapped wrecks just brought in from Oblivion Bay. Tendo had given him some good-natured grief about staying true to his Wall construction roots – he’d been asked to weld far more often than he had actual interest in, but at least it was something to do.

                  The barracks were a ghost town in the mid-afternoon. Raleigh didn’t have to wind around a slow-moving river of people going to and from other corners of the facility in the tight corridors. He enjoyed the quiet walk and took his time down the winding path, cutting across several halls leading to different areas of the ‘dome; the junction signs that attempting to give direction in the labyrinth pointed to the Kwoon, several different Jaeger bays and the Scrapyard. Raleigh followed the yellow markers leading the way to the Scrapyard. There were simply too many bits and pieces of decommissioned Jaegers to deal with – it would be impossible to fit everything in the main bay to work on and reassemble. The Scrapyard sat adjacent to the main floor in a much neater, orderly version of Oblivion Bay; Raleigh found himself grateful as usual that the Yard was outdoors, the stink of almost perpetual welding and smoke hanging heavy in the air.

                  He took his time putting on his gear before heading out into the Yard proper, offering anyone who glanced his way a polite nod but little else. When he had first started helping in Scrapyard he had gotten a lot of sidelong looks and outright confused questioning - Raleigh Becket, Ranger and hero of Operation Pitfall, running around in the Scrapyard on _collection duty?_ No one questioned Mako for the work she was doing, but seeing Raleigh in the heaps with her salvage crews had seemed to them like a step down from the pedestal. It had bugged Raleigh, honestly. He didn’t _want_ a pedestal. He wanted to help. Eventually the looks had stopped – or at least were better hidden when he couldn’t notice them – and the questioning eased off. Everyone had too much to do and not enough time to do it, and as long as he didn’t mess up and set something on fire, they no longer seemed to mind his presence.

                  The newest salvage wasn’t very impressive in terms of size. Sometimes the wrecks they dredged from Oblivion Bay were quarter to half of Jaegers, broken giants that could be hollowed out and rebuilt from the inside out. Not so today - one of Romeo Blue’s arms lay rusted and irreparably damaged on the ground, being picked apart by several crews for its hydraulic systems. The odd-shaped hand was permanently frozen in a grasping gesture, its fingers stained with Blue; Raleigh tried not to think about how Romeo had been brought down but faced with the reminders he couldn’t help it. The kaiju had been neutralized…but it had cost both the Jaeger and the lives of her pilots to do it.

                  Raleigh hadn’t known Bruce or Trevin Gage. He had liked them well enough by default, watching their interviews and listening to the stories about their patrols. Their deaths in Seattle had been a shock; some people blamed the Jaeger with its haphazard design flaws – what had they been _thinking_ , putting that spike on its chest to provide the perfect handhold for a clever enemy? – while others had blamed the Gages themselves. Dead on their second deployment, and taking a chunk of Seattle with them when the kaiju had been brought down. Raleigh studied the blue-black stains of kaiju blood on the mangled fingers. The Gages had done their duty as best they could with what they had. It rankled to think anyone would have thought less of the fallen pilots. At least Romeo would serve again in some way. The Gages could only be honored in memory.

                  Trying to shake off the melancholic thoughts, Raleigh went hunting for his usual salvage crew. They were scattered on top of the arm, winding their way down through spaces too tight for Raleigh to even fit in. He resigned himself to finding a spot on his own and getting to work; there was a cavernous hollow in the upper arm’s chassis where the internal machinery had been gutted out. The reek of hot metal was heavy inside the poorly ventilated space. Raleigh ignored the almost immediate discomfort, joining in with a group of wreckers tearing into the remaining machinery. Despite the heat and noise Raleigh found it easy to work, his mind going into autopilot as he focused on the tasks at hand.

                  The Wall had been five years of functioning on a different kind of autopilot; there had been whole stretches of days where he would live so cyclically in a pattern of sleep-work-sleep-repeat it felt like he had hardly existed at all. At least here the work had meaning; the drudgery of the Wall was made worse in hindsight, knowing how useless it had really been. As he helped pile up and haul out ruined machinery, Raleigh wondered what was to become of the Sitka wall. Five years of his life in that ugly, useless mess – would they blow it up, maybe? Or would they wait until one of the proposed construction series Jaegers was completed and bash it apart by hand? Or would they simply leave it there, standing lonely and abandoned until it crumbled in on itself?

                  Raleigh sighed, wondering too what Gottlieb was thinking of the situation. He had never met Lars Gottlieb personally, but he had been on inspections to Sitka a few times. Would it be awkward to introduce himself to the man? What would he even say as an icebreaker – “I knew a couple guys that fell to their deaths building your Wall”?

                 Yeah, _that_ would go over well.

                The morning passed easily into late afternoon without Raleigh noticing. He helped haul several loads of salvage out, sending it off to be processed; there was a small foundry sitting separate from the Scrapyard that took care of most of the scrap, constantly taking in material to recycle. Raleigh hung back and rested for a moment, coughing at the hot metal tang hanging so heavy in the air. A gaggle of salvage crew passed by him, talking amongst themselves.

               “They really setting up shop in that place?”

               “Have to. Orders from the top.”

               Raleigh glanced over at them, feeling like an eavesdropper but interested despite himself. The pair talking paid him no attention, looking dour.

              “Orders from the top don’t mean shit if they don’t know what they’re even askin’ us to do,” the man said. His friend shrugged, pushing her hardhat up to scratch at her hair.

              “They’re requesting all sorts…kind of like a satellite ‘dome after everyone’s settled in.”

               “Or establishing a beachhead. Dunno which I like less.”

They walked on, ignoring Raleigh as their conversation veered into other things. Raleigh watched them go with a tight, uncomfortable feeling in his chest; the city was the undercurrent of stress and worry in the ‘dome ever since its existence had been formally announced. All Raleigh had been told was that it was ‘ _being looked into’_ – either there really was nothing else to be said about it until the Corps could learn more, or he was so low on the need-to-know food chain that no one would bother telling him.

                  He wouldn’t mind being left out of the loop if it meant there was nothing there that needed his and Mako’s attention. Stranger things had happened….maybe their luck would hold this time around, and it would be nothing.  

He hoped so.


	7. Chapter 7

                  “You’re not seriously bringing the parka, are you?”

                  Gottlieb scowled at Newt, defiantly throwing the huge jacket into his suitcase.

                  “We’re going to Iceland. Forgive me for taking the name at face value.”

                  The flight to the Hekla site wasn’t even for another two days, but Gottlieb had been determined to pack all and sundry to ensure he was prepared for any situation. Every time he suggested Newt do the same it had been with sharper and sharper irritation; Newt was trying not to take the attitude personally but it was beginning to wear on his nerves.

                  “I’m just saying it’s going to be late spring weather. You don’t need to cart around the jacket.”

                  “Why are you haranguing me about this,” Gottlieb muttered, folding up a sweater vest and trying to find space to pack it in the over-filled suitcase. “We’ve already had our inane argument for the day about the coffee maker, I’m in no fit mood for another one.”

                  “I already said I’d clean it, and I’m not _haranguing,_ ” Newt said. Gottlieb waved him off, abandoning the sweater vest and moving on to stuffing several pairs of wool socks into the suitcase instead. Newt gave a disgusted sound and turned away. “Whatever. Don’t forget the kitchen sink in there.”

                  “Remind me of the flight itinerary again?”

                  Newt turned back around with a sigh, sitting on the edge of Gottlieb’s bed. He picked up the sweater vest and unfolded it, studying the ugly argyle pattern.

                  “Six hour flight from here to New York, then from there another five hours to Reykjavik. I forget how long it takes to get to Hekla.”

                  “Eleven straight hours of flying,” Gottlieb said. “I’ll be wishing for death after the fifth.”

                  “You and me both, I fuckin’ hate the little passenger planes they use for these trips. Better be worth it.”

                  Gottlieb made a noncommittal sound, taking the vest away from Newt and refolding it for what had to be the fifth time. He set it aside and tried to close his suitcase, grunting with effort as the zipper caught every few inches.

                  “It’s gonna break, dude.”

                  The withering look Gottlieb fixed on him shut Newt up; he raised his hands in resigned defeat, pointedly closing his mouth.

                  “They should be knocking the place down with wrecking balls and dynamite, not letting it grow.” Newt shrugged, making Gottlieb scowl. “You _know_ they should be. There is no spirit of discovery good enough to allow something of _theirs_ to keep going.”

                  “You read the report. It’ll take a scorched earth campaign at this point to get it to stop growing. And…I mean, look where it IS. It’s using a volcano to power itself, so who even knows if carpet bombing the place would even do anything?”

                  He poked Gottlieb, grinning.

                  “You’re the mechanical expert. Build an EMP bomb or something. Bad-ass electro wave knocking out the whole island, it’d be _awesome_.” He waited for an irritated look and sagged in disappointment when Gottlieb ignored him. “Aw, c’mon. That’s grade A ‘ _Newton, you’re being an imbecile_ ’ material. Nothing? Not even a scoff?”

                  Gottlieb pointedly folded a work shirt, shaking his head.

                  “You’re trying far too hard.”

                  “It doesn’t take much to annoy you. I feel like I’ve been slacking on it lately.”

                  “No, what you’re trying to do is keep me distracted, and every time you fail to do so you try to step up the attempt.” Gottlieb set the shirt aside and reopened his suitcase, taking everything out and piling them onto the bed, only to restart the packing process all over again. “It’s unnecessary.”

                  The reason why Gottlieb was being sent away from the Shatterdome was an incredibly awkward elephant in the room; he hadn’t tried to protest his exile, but the resentment that he had to leave at all was obvious anytime someone tried to speak to him about the trip. Newt had stopped trying to point out anything good about being in the field. He couldn’t blame Gottlieb for being upset and having to stall his work - Herc might have had Gottlieb’s best interests at heart, but it was incredibly disruptive all the same.

                  “What’re you gonna work on while we’re there?”

                  “AI coding, mostly. I’ll dare to assume there will be decent intranet connections and I’ll be able to reach the Corps servers.”

                  “Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

                  “ _Fine_ doesn’t reassure me. Have you checked where we’re being stationed? It’s literally in the middle of nowhere. I’d just like some evidence there are adequate facilities out there…”

                  “It’s a Corps base, they know what they’re doing when they set this stuff up,” Newt said, annoyed. Gottlieb’s gave him a skeptical look. “Oh my god, are you really nitpicking about this already?”

                  “I want to be able to do my job while you’re out in the field doing yours. I do not see why being concerned about my accommodations is nitpicking.”

                  “Fussing, then.”

                  Gottlieb threw a pile of clothes into the suitcase in a spurt of sharp frustration, glaring at Newt.

                  “Could you not question my every concern? Just _once_ I would like to express a worry without you immediately _invalidating_ it!”

                  Newt slid off the bed’s edge, giving an exaggerated shrug.

                  “Maybe if you just trusted that people know their shit and are doing their jobs, you wouldn’t have to _worry_ so much. Jesus H, Hermann! You don’t need to micromanage everything! Things work without you having a say in how they’re set up!”

                  “I don’t have a say in _any_ of this!” Gottlieb snapped. He pointed at the door as Newt started to retort. “No. Not right now, Newton. Just leave me alone.”

                  “Fine.”

                  “Good.”

                  “Great! _Whatever!”_

                  Newt stormed out of their shared quarters in a huff, finding himself out in the corridor before he realized where he was going. He stood outside as the door swung shut and quickly began to feel like an idiot.

                  “Screw it,” he muttered to himself. Slinking back inside felt like accepting defeat, and no way was he letting Gottlieb win another argument today. He headed down out of the barrack wing and towards the labs. There had to be some specimen labeling or tool rearrangement he could kill a few hours with. And a few hours more he could spend loitering in the mess or rec room to sulk.

                  Every research and maintenance area in the ‘dome had been updated with new security measures to prevent unauthorized personnel or _otherwise_ from getting into spaces they didn’t belong – Herc had been adamant about upgrading locks and ID readers – so the fact that the lab door was open a crack and the ID reader blinking a steady, unlocked green caught Newt very off-guard. He had closed and locked the door personally not even an hour and a half previously. He stared at the reader, and then slowly pushed the door open with his fingertips and peered inside.

                  “Hello?”

                  There was a soft creaking sound; weight shifting in a chair, and the sudden shuffling of papers back into a folder. Newt’s eyes narrowed in suspicion and he kicked the door open.

                  “You’re not suppose-! Oh. Uh.”

                  Lars sat at Gottlieb’s desk, looking almost guilty. The expression quickly faded as Newt stared at him, and he pushed his glasses up his nose with a prim gesture.

                  “Doctor Geiszler,” he said cordially. Silence stretched between them as Newt waited for an excuse or explanation, allowing it to become very awkward. Lars dropped his gaze to the file he had been going through, then got up from Gottlieb’s desk and straightened out his jacket. “I’ll not disturb you. Good evening.”

                  “What were you doing?” Lars seemed determined to ignore the question, heading for the door. Newt stepped in his way. “Doctor Gottlieb, why are you in here?”

                  “We both have business we should be attending to,” Lars said. “I’ll see myself out. If you wouldn’t mind?”

                  He gestured to the door; Newt pushed it closed, squinting at Lars in barely-masked suspicion. The man was gangly and tall as his son, and Newt resented having to look _up_ at him to maintain eye contact.

                  “Okay, you officially have a worse poker face than Hermann,” he said. Lars frowned at him. “Same scowl-lines, though. What were you doing in here?” He looked over at Gottlieb’s desk; there was a small, neat stack of files sitting on it. Lars looked immensely uncomfortable and stepped back, seeming unable to justify pushing Newt out of the way.

                  “I was looking into some of Hermann’s work, if you must know. Hardly grounds for an interrogation.”

                  “So why were you sneaking around?”

                  Lars’ expression tightened in offense.

                  “I do not _sneak,_ Doctor Geiszler. I’m not some sort of spy rooting through your files. Marshall Hansen already saw to it that that security lapse would not repeat itself.”

                  “Wait. You…you know about Liang?”

                  “Of course I do, she’s on Corps payroll as a…a _contractor._ Her presence is a black mark on this entire Shatterdome,” Lars snapped. “I’ve heard more than enough to know she is as bad as her former _employer.”_

                  “Okay, first off? No she’s not. Second? Nice attempt at getting off-topic, but it’s not flying.” Newt pointed in Lars’ face, the suspicious squint returning. “Lurking around after hours in a secure lab, trying to escape as soon as someone walks in on you? Looks pretty shady to me.”

                  “Your imagination must entertain you for hours on end,” Lars said flatly. Newt crossed his arms over his chest and gave Lars an annoyingly challenging glare. “You are acting juvenile, Doctor Geiszler. And I am under no obligation to explain myself to you.”

                  “Okay. I’ll go tell Hermann you were sneaking through his stuff, then.” Newt turned on his heel, unsurprised to find Lars reaching over and pinning the door shut with his hand.

                  “There’s no need for that,” he said hastily. Newt felt a moment’s pity; a schoolyard threat to tattle and the guy had crumbled. Lars drew back with an attempt to save face, watching Newt as he went to Gottlieb’s desk and picked up the files.

                  “This is all AI stuff,” he said, confused. He looked up at Lars. “None of this is classified. Why didn’t you just ask about it?”

                  Lars stared around the lab, looking uncomfortable again.

                  “Discussions with Hermann about his work can be very…surface,” he said. “I wanted to see what he was doing with his time.”

                  The pity returned, deeper this time. Newt opened up the desk drawer Gottlieb usually kept his current project folders in, filing everything back into its proper place.

                  “He’s working with Caitlin Lightcap on this stuff,” he said. “It’s a big deal to him.”

                  “I’m sure it is. Her work is exemplary, it would be a privilege to work in conjunction with her.”

                  Newt frowned at him, the pity ebbing.

                  “You ever tell _Hermann_ that?” Lars blinked at him, uncomprehending. “Seriously. You drop compliments on others pretty quick. What about Hermann?”

                  The uncomprehending look turned to annoyance; Lars huffed.

                  “I will not be drawn into some kind of cliché argument that I don’t appreciate my own son enough,” he said.

                  “So give me the cliché answer and I’ll drop it.”

                  “I don’t have to justify anything to you, Doctor Geiszler. I cannot press that strongly enough. My personal business is _none_ of yours.”

                  “He never talks about you,” Newt said, his temper slipping. “Ever. He mentions _nothing_ about you. Why is that? I mean, aside from you heading one of the worst ideas known to mankind?”

                  Lars’ mouth pinched in a tight scowl, his eyes burning under furrowed brows. Newt immediately knew he had crossed a line but refused to back off, holding that angry gaze evenly.

                  “I would suggest you not pretend any kind of superiority to me, Doctor Geiszler. If we’re going to delve into the past, I would bring up your more _recent_ history as points of concern.”

                  Newt’s temper began to dial down, a cold sense of uncertainty replacing it.

                  “What d’you mean?”

                  “You know full well what I mean,” Lars said icily, approaching the desk and closing the space between them. “Drifting with kaiju specimens. Being _possessed_ by them. I saw the medical report after Hermann’s little _interview_ with you during the Scunner incident. Thirteen stitches in his hands. You _injured_ him.”

“That wasn’t me,” Newt said. He hated how quickly he spat the words out, feeling cornered and scrabbling to defend himself. “I wouldn’t do that, I never would have-”

                  “And yet you did. Not just to him but Ranger Mori as well, they _both_ still bear the scars. And then after the Scunner specimen died, there were the multiple reports of your decaying mental stability-”

                  “That wasn’t my fault! I’d like to see _you_ live with dead kaiju bonds in your brain, see how you handle it!”

                  “And then, off to Pitcairn Island you went,” Lars continued. “Drifting with another kaiju specimen and worsening your _crippling_ instability, raving about trapped hiveminds and evil alien overlords, supposedly Drifting into interdimensional battlegrounds and ending the Second Wave all by yourself-”

                  “That’s the _TRUTH!”_

                  “Perhaps it is. We have only _your_ word for it, which Hermann seems ready and willing to accept without question.” Newt stared at him, feeling pinned; he was unreasonably glad the desk was sitting between them. Lars glowered. “He will trust and confide in a madman over his own father. I have a great deal of difficulty understanding the logic in that.”

                  “I am not crazy,” Newt said, voice low. “And if you don’t believe the fucking _truth_ , that is _your_ problem _,_ not mine. It’s still the truth whether you want to believe it or not.”

                  “Why? Why does he _believe_ you?”

                  “Because he…no. You know what? You read my reports just so you could have ammunition to damn me. If you can’t be bothered to read _all_ of it, I’m not gonna waste my time explaining jack shit to you.”

                  “I _have_ read everything,” Lars said. “I have watched every vid-record, gone through every file and paper. I read that damned _book_ you two scraped together.”

                  Newt’s anger suddenly fell flat; Lars’ cold tone hadn’t changed, but the idea of him poring over every scrap of material in search of _something_ struck a deep chord.

                  “You can’t ask him about it,” he said. Lars’ expression flickered. “Yeah, that’s it. You’re probably busting at the seams wanting to ask about the past few years. But you really…really can’t ask him about any of it.”

                  Lars drew back, his jaw working. Newt shook his head slowly.

                  “I can’t give that to you, Doctor Gottlieb,” he said. “I’m sorry. Hermann’s…he’s my Drift partner. I can’t explain why he trusts me in a way you’ll get, not if you don’t…I dunno. Think I’m worthy of being his friend.” When Lars made no move to correct him, Newt gave a thin laugh. “Yeah, I thought as much.”

                  “You are a support where he needs it,” Lars said stiffly. “I suppose it’s no matter whether I understand it or not.”

                  “That’s one way of putting it.”

                  Lars stared at the desktop between them for a moment, and then stepped back.

                  “I should be on my way,” he said. “I dislike asking favors of anyone, but…”

                  “Just go, sir.”      

                  It wasn’t a promise or a reassurance, but Lars seemed to take it for what it was worth. He gave Newt a brisk nod and walked out of the room; Newt followed behind him, pushing the door firmly shut.


	8. Chapter 8

 

                  Nothing about travel agreed with Gottlieb; he was in a fouler mood than Newt had ever thought possible by the time the plane landed in Reykjavik. How much of it was the atrocious jetlag they were both struggling with and how much was the exile he had been forced into was up for debate, but there was no way in hell Newt was going to try and cajole him out of it. Their departure from the Shatterdome had been an uncomfortable affair; Mako and Herc had tried to wish them a safe trip to little response from Gottlieb beyond a strained, barely-there smile and muttered goodbyes, his gaze fixed firmly over Herc’s shoulder as though expecting to see Lars lurking in a far corner. Newt hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the man after kicking him out of the lab, and keeping the promise not to mention it to anyone was oddly straining. Proof that Lars Gottlieb actually gave a shit about people other than himself wasn’t something Newt had expected to be burdened by.

                  “I trust a car will be here to pick us up,” Gottlieb muttered beside him. Newt blinked, jarred out of his train of thought.

                  “Oh, uh...yeah, they’re usually pretty good about that. When I went to Pitcairn we got picked up in a BMW and everything. No expense spared, all that good stuff.”

                  “Fascinating,” Gottlieb said, so cool and disinterested it shut Newt up at once. They had landed in the predawn hours when the airport hung between the last dregs of the red-eyes and the incoming morning flights, silent but for the murmurs of fellow overtired passengers trying to find their way to baggage claims. Newt left Gottlieb at a cluster of empty seats and excused himself to get something to eat, privately glad to get away from him for a few moments. The Drift bond between them thrummed with such discomforting tension it had turned into a headache fixed firmly in his temples and blurred his vision.

                  He took off his glasses and rubbed gingerly at his eyes, grumbling to himself. It would definitely be uncharitable thinking he couldn’t wait to ditch him at their temporary quarters, but the thought lurked off to the side no matter how he tried to push it away. It really wasn’t Gottlieb’s fault he was so miserable; there was no use in getting annoyed at him about it. He returned soon enough with fare straight from a vending machine, unwrapping the granola bar with his teeth and pushing the other into Gottlieb’s hands.

                  “Thank you.”

                  “I would’ve gotten chips but I figured this’d go over better.” Newt sat down next to him, gnawing at it with mild distaste. Gottlieb turned the bar over in his hands and sighed, putting it away in his coat’s breast pocket.

                  “Thank you,” he said again. Newt blinked at him.

                  “They’re not that good.”

                  “Not about the _food_ , you-” Gottlieb cut himself off, stopping the insult before it could start. Newt stared at him in confusion. “Thank you for being so patient. I know I’ve been beastly to you lately, and for once it truly _isn’t_ your fault and I just…”

                  Newt patted his shoulder, taking the haphazard apology for what it was worth.

                  “Bygones. Don’t worry about it.”

                  “You’re willing to excuse it all that quickly?” Gottlieb asked.

                  “It’s been a messy, screwed-up few days, but I’m cool with letting it go if you are.”

                  Gottlieb nodded, giving Newt that same strained smile. The tension remained unrelieved in the bond and Newt’s headache gave a subtle throb, but at least it was maintaining if not getting any better. They left the terminal as the sparse morning crowd of travelers began to thicken, more people pressing in around them than Newt had expected; the effort to get outside rewarded them with an overcast morning and cold air that snapped at their faces in gusts. Soon enough a car pulled up to the curb beside them, their luggage claimed and the driver hustling them into the back seat of the less than spacious vehicle.

                  Newt found himself dozing off on the ride, jarred to half wakefulness every time the car hit a divot in the road. Gottlieb was staring out the window and seemed to sink into himself the further they went, his shoulders hunched and the voluminous hood of his parka swallowing him up in a drape of olive fabric. The driver wasn’t very talkative and had turned on the radio to fill the silence; static-snowed classical music played at little more than a murmur through the speakers.

The grey day had brightened only a little  by the time Newt found himself being shaken awake. He pulled away and frowned muzzily at Gottlieb, who scowled back at him.

“Newton, your _ID._ They’re waiting on you.”

The passenger side window was rolled down and a security guard was looking down at him, clipboard in hand and a scowl that competed with Gottlieb’s on his face. Newt dug the ID card out if his pocket and the guard snatched it at once, going back to his post with it.

“What time is it?”

“Mid-morning,” Gottlieb said noncommittally. “It doesn’t take long to get out of Reykjavik. You slept through most of it.”

“Mmngh. Feel like shit.” Newt took his glasses off and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, the grogginess of too much sleep making his still aching head feel heavy. Gottlieb didn’t reply, though he did pat Newt’s shoulder in something like consolation.

The guard returned with his and Gottlieb’s IDs, muttering to the driver before waving them through the gate. Newt squinted out the window, catching a quick glance of tall chainlink fencing crowned with thick barbed wire and spotlights before they pulled further in, passing rows of field trailers before stopping at a cluster of three modular buildings. Newt put his glasses back on, trying to work out the posted sign by the biggest building, Gottlieb leaning over his shoulder trying to do the same.

“I’ve never been to a field outpost before, have you?”

Gottlieb shook his head, sitting back with a frown.

“Not once. They were mostly for post-event management, weren’t they?”

“Yeah. The one in Manila was pretty much a city itself by the time the cleanup finished…might as well follow the same protocol here.” Newt got out of the car when it became obvious the driver wasn’t going to open the doors for them, stretching to work out the kinks in his back. A woman in LOCCENT-esque uniform was exiting the middle modular building and headed right for them, waving Newt along as she passed by. Newt blinked and then hurried after her, looking over his shoulder and gesturing for Gottlieb to follow.

“You’ll have to excuse the rushed welcome,” the woman was already saying as Newt jogged up to her side. “It has been a very busy morning. Activity tends to spike around this time and we’ve just received reports of structure growth in the eighth district-”

“I haven’t been briefed about anything,” Newt said, cutting in. The woman still didn’t slow down as she looked askance at him. “I’m sorry! We _just_ got here, I didn’t receive any materials to look over! I don’t even know where I’m _working!_ ”

The woman stopped and pointed straight ahead. Newt looked towards the horizon and jolted; the field outpost was stationed about a two miles from a towering, snow-blanketed mountain surrounded by grey-green steppes. There was a gaping upheaval in the ground on the western side of the mountain - no, Newt reminded himself, a volcano, an active _volcano -_ and stabbing upwards through the wounded earth were towers like spinal columns, connected by platforms and thick webs of cables.

“It got bigger,” Newt said dumbly, mouth gone dry and his voice hoarse. The woman nodded, pointing again; a strangely branched tower was threaded with lines of fiery red light that coursed into the other structures connected to it through the cables.

“It powers up twice every twenty four hours for two building cycles,” she said. “The eighth district is receiving the majority of the daytime geothermal draw. By the time it powers down again in two hours there’ll be at least three new structures finishing up construction.”

Newt’s head was spinning from overload, instinctive fear of the too-familiar buildings making him feel sick. He fell back a step, trying to grasp for something to hold onto in the woman’s explanation. It seemed to slip through his fingers and he had to turn away, going right back towards the cluster of buildings.

“I need time to go over what I’m supposed to be doing,” he said over the woman’s surprised protest. “I can’t go in there blind.” _I don’t want to go in there at all._ “Can you show me to the command post here? You look like LOCCENT, there’s got to be a project leader here I can speak to.”

Gottlieb was waiting inside the main modular as Newt came in; he said something that bounced off Newt unheard, following the uniformed woman into the depths of the building. It had been kitted out as a mobile command center, six consoles manned with techs monitoring the city. She gestured for him to sit at the only available console, opening the vidcall program and initiating it before he could even ask what she was doing. The call screen blinked on and Newt found himself staring at Ambassador Tirsa Safirsdottir. He recoiled, immediately trying to smooth his mussed hair and rumpled clothing.

“ _Oh_! Hi! Ah, I- I mean, hello your...miss. Ma’am? Madam Representive?”

Tirsa waited him out with a gimlet-eyed stare that made heat rush to his face and his voice peter out, then inclined her head slightly.

 _“It’s typically ‘Madam Ambassador’,”_ she said. “ _It’s a good to meet you face to face, Doctor Geiszler. The introduction was to be more formal later today.”_

“Yeah, I...everything seems a little out of sorts around here,” Newt said with a slightly forced laugh. He sat up as straight as he could and tried to stop fidgeting, knotting his fingers together to keep his hands still. “I walked into the middle of something with no direction where to go.”

_“I apologize. Again, everything was planned for a smoother introduction. I didn’t count on the daytime cycle starting an hour before your arrival. The crew tends to become overexcited during construction periods.”_

“I kinda got that impression, yeah. I was just asking…” he paused, looking at the woman still standing by his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I never caught your name.”

“Eydís.”

“Right, right. I was just asking _Eydís_ about project leads and maybe getting info that’s more up to date.”

“ _Everything has been arranged-”_

“Yes, I _know_ things have been arranged, but it’s more a matter of keeping me in the loop with information that’s still valid after a month. The report Marshall Hansen gave me shows structures _HALF_ that size!” Tirsa’s expression betrayed nothing as Newt’s voice rose, the initial horror of his first sight of the city transforming to anger. “Ma’am, no disrespect intended but who the hell is _running_ this operation?”

“ _You._ ”

Newt blinked, falling back in his chair. His mouth opened and closed a few times as he tried to frame the right question but no sound came out.

“ _To be more exact, Doctor Geiszler, formal directorship of the project was to be conferred to you upon my arrival - which seems irrelevant now, given this conversation,”_ she said. “ _Everything here was set up for you._ ”

“Why wasn’t I told sooner?”

 _“The decision was not immediate or unanimous. While the Corps and my government were attempting to come to an agreement the situation still required study and containment, and so the outpost was built and started without a permanent lead. Now that you are here, the position is yours._ ”

“But…” Newt looked around the command center;  no one but Eydís was looking at him but the room was far too small for the rest of the crew not to eavesdrop. “This isn’t how projects are supposed to be started. Who would you have gotten if I was unavailable? Or refused?”

“ _It would have been a matter of compelling orders from Marshall Hansen if you decided otherwise, Doctor,”_ Tirsa replied, so succinctly it made Newt’s heart sink. He didn’t want to dwell on what Herc would have done; the idea of such an order he couldn’t disobey coming straight from the Marshall wasn’t a pill he could swallow at the moment.

“So you started the project without my knowledge, over something I know nothing about, and expect me to take the reins like it’s no big deal,” he said. Tirsa had the grace to look uncomfortable for a moment before nodding.

“ _That is correct. The cart was put before the horse in this instance, I’m afraid.”_

Newt leaned back, his headache giving such a sharp throb it made his eyes water.

“Is everything that’ll get me up to speed ready for me yet?”

“ _Yes._ _Eydí_ _s is the command center officer, any records or access you require can be gotten through her.”_

“Thanks,” Newt muttered. He looked up at Eydís. “Just...get me a computer setup with intranet access. I’ll sort out the records on my own.”

“Yes, sir.” As Eydís walked away, Newt looked back at Tirsa tiredly, squinting at the harsh fluorescent holo-screen.

“Any other surprises waiting for me, or was this the only one for today?”

 _“That should be all for now, Doctor. I apologize for the disorder you’ve walked in on. Had outside elements proven more cooperative…”_ Tirsa frowned, looking down and shuffling at unseen papers on her desk. _“You come highly recommended. Caitlin Lightcap has vouched many times for your character, if not your unorthodox methods._ ”

“Yeah, nobody has much to say positively about how stuff gets done. But I do bring results.”

_“That, you certainly do. The reports of your actions in Operation Pitfall and your activities during the outbreak of the Second Wave are popular reading.”_

Newt frowned at the semi-compliments, waving them away impatiently.

“It’s not just me that did stuff. I had help. I _always_ have help. Everyone forgets that.”

“ _It’s my understanding Doctor Gottlieb has been sent to accompany you. Perhaps the arrangement will prove acceptable._ ”

“That’s not the-” New sat straight again, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for the...um. The entire project, I guess.”

 _“For what it’s worth, you’re welcome, Doctor Geiszler._ _Eydí_ _s will be sending me copies of all reports you file so that I can keep abreast of the situation and I will be wanting to conference with you again by week’s end for your current progress._ ”

“You got it.” The screen blinked off and Newt pushed away from the console, looking around the room again; the techs were all looking back at him. “So, uh...hi.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was early evening by the time everything had been sorted out for Newt; his quarters and office space assigned, multiple project accesses acquired, and a general sense of direction given to him by the stoic Eydís - he had since learned she was the one keeping the outpost running, and had made a mental note to defer to her whenever possible. She had a presence very much like Tendo’s, and project leader or not Newt wasn’t going to take exception to anything she had set up to keep the outpost from imploding.

His quarters were the typical Corps strain of Spartan furnishing, and he found it uncomfortable to linger in it too long by himself. In all the rush to get himself situated he had lost track of Gottlieb entirely; he left the modular building that hosted the officer’s quarters and went in search of him, following the pull of their Drift bond under the tension headache. Several aspirin had dulled the ache to acceptable levels, but as Newt approached the outskirts of the outpost to where Gottlieb sat alone among discarded storage bins and crates, it gave a cold, needling throb.

“Hermann?”

The shapeless lump of a hood shifted slightly and Gottlieb looked over his shoulder, raising a hand in halfhearted greeting. Newt sat beside him on the crate, looking out to Hekla and the valley.

“It looks like an infected wound, doesn’t it.”

“It does,” Newt said quietly. “There’s a satellite camp on the far edge that’s been keeping guard on it, apparently. Issues with civilians trying to get in.”

Gottlieb said nothing to that. He pushed his hood off his head and smoothed his hair as best he could, wincing slightly at the cold, gusting winds. They sat watching the city; the sun soon sank below the horizon, the night sky barely visible through cracks in the thick cloud cover. The main tower of the city was dormant, the cables dark and lifeless; the night construction cycle was estimated to begin soon, and with it the construction of a new district.

“They’ve given you command of the entire project.”

Newt nodded, zippering his hoodie up and folding his arms tight against his chest, trying to ignore the cold.

“Yeah. Nice ‘welcome to Iceland’ gift, I guess.”

“I’m happy for you,” Gottlieb said. He stressed the word and Newt knew he meant it honestly, but his voice was bleak and tired. “This is a massive undertaking.”

“I don’t even know what they want me to do,” Newt muttered. “I’ve been reading the reports all day. Those tiny beetle things they found converting soil samples are nanomachines. The entire valley’s rotten with ‘em. And every time Yggdrasil powers up it’s a boost for them to go into overdrive, digging deeper into the earth and building.”

“Yggdrasil?”

“Yeah.” Newt pointed to the central tower. “That was the first structure. It split the ground open with its roots and the branches have been growing out ever since. The more it grows, the more the city spreads.”

“Don’t suppose they’ve attempted to knock it down?” Gottlieb asked dryly. Newt snorted.

“Would you go in guns a-blazing? The thing might have roots in the planet’s core by now. Knocking it down could split Earth in half.”

“There’s a cheery thought.”

Newt’s gaze dropped to the ground and he leaned forward with his head hanging. Gottlieb put a hand on his shoulder, still looking out at the valley.

“I have to go in there eventually,” he said. “The idea that I have to go _near_ that place makes me want to throw up. How the hell am I going to lead a project studying a place that scares the shit out of me? I figured, hey, someone has to be running this fiasco and I’ll be here to consult, maybe study a couple samples and then be on my merry way while they bomb it to the lowest fucking reaches of hell. I...I was _happy._ We were _okay._ The breachlings are a fucking mess and I know the Jaeger stuff is getting weird but I just thought - I just thought, after _everything_ we’ve been through, we had earned a _BREAK.”_

He was shaking as he fell quiet, pressing his hands to his face. Gottlieb’s grip on his shoulder tightened slightly, giving him something to hold onto so he wouldn’t come apart completely.

                  “There’s always more to be done,” Gottlieb said. His voice was very quiet, barely above the wind sighing over the steppes. “You know that. I know that. Anyone with any sense at all in their heads knows there is always, _always_ more to be done. It’s a matter of how we handle the responsibility of it all that counts.”

                  “I don’t know what to do.”

                  “Do we ever?”

                  The headache was ebbing slightly; Newt’s hands fell away from his face and he looked over at Gottlieb.

                  “We used to. Study the Breach and close it. Pretty simple in hindsight.”

                  “It was, and we did. But the work was not finished.”

                  Newt sat up, looking past Hekla to the slivers of night sky beyond. There were no artificial lights for miles aside from the red wound of the valley, and on a clear night he was certain the view would be spectacular and full of stars. The idea only spurred the useless wish to be in the light pollution of Los Angeles, as far as humanly possible from the infected valley.

                  “Will you help me?”

                  Gottlieb’s hand squeezed Newt’s shoulder again, giving him a slight shake.

                  “Always.”

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

 

 

            Tendo was so deeply asleep he didn’t even realize there was an intruder in his room until they sat down on the edge of his bed and pulled his blankets off. He rolled over with a confused sound, blinking – the figure leaned over and clicked his nightstand lamp on, making him jerk back in surprise with a loud cry of groggy alarm. He scrambled back in bed and yelped as his head collided with the cement wall behind him, pressing his hands to the rising lump.

            “Are you _serious?_ Liang, don’t _do that!_ ”

            Liang Xuè De Shé was many things but subtle was not one of them, and neither it seemed was repentant – she grinned down at him and obliged to scoot off the bed as he got up, looking up at the ceiling in false modesty. “You didn’t answer my email _or_ the vidcall. Dropping by for a visit isn’t a crime.”

            “This isn’t a visit,” Tendo snapped, going into his quarters tiny bathroom and firmly closing the door to get changed. “This is just you being _you._ ”

            “Alright, alright. I’m sorry. If it’s going to make you this sour, I’ll learn to knock.”

            “You do that.” Liang was sitting on the edge of his bed again scrolling through her phone when he had finally made himself presentable again, throwing his pajamas in a sad heap next to her. “It is _nine_ in the _morning._ You cannot be this much of a morning person. It’s inhuman.”

            “Says the man who doesn’t sleep for twenty hour stretches. This is comatose for you.”

            Tendo hunched his shoulders as though suddenly caught in a lie, clearing his throat. “I…might’ve. Taken a sick day.” The look of open surprise on Liang’s face made him flush in embarrassment. Tendo Choi and time off wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room. “It’s the most dishonest thing I’ve ever done as an officer and I’m not proud of it. There’s this guy-”

            “Oh. Oh, this is about Lars Gottlieb, isn’t it? I’d probably fake my death to get out of a meeting with him.” Tendo blinked at her as Liang went back to studying her phone, tapping out text messages. She glanced back up at him and smiled. “Don’t act like me keeping tabs on things is unexpected. Everyone’s abuzz with how he’s tearing the Shatterdome apart.”

            “That’s…that’s kind of an exaggeration. By a mile.”

            She shrugged, tucking her phone back into her coat’s inner pocket. “Is it?”

            “Yes, it is. Nobody respects him enough to bother listening to anything he says.” He sat down beside her, pushing her shoulder lightly in half-earnest annoyance. “Why are you here?”

            “To liaise with my official Corps handler, what else?” Tendo squinted hard at her, and she returned the look with a smile that contrived to be innocent. After a moment he relented, shaking his head.

            “Alright. _Liaise,_ black market contact. What’s going on in the shady world of post-alien invasion arms deals.”

            “Be nice, these are arms deals I’m arranging for you.” That earned her another squint. “Not my fault the Kaidonovskys were your only legitimate access to Russian warheads.”

            Tendo groaned, standing again and going to the small kitchenette on the other side of the room. “I need coffee before I can start talking about nuclear arsenals. You want one?”

             “Please.”

            The smell of cheap, strong coffee soon filled the small room, and Tendo leaned against the counter with his eyes closed and arms crossed over his chest, feeling the stirrings of a tension headache. Any kind of conversation with Liang made him jittery for reasons he preferred not to examine too closely. When they had first met she had been Hannibal Chau’s envoy, making deals and securing trade agreements.  It was a strange turn of events that had ended up with her on the Corps’ side, and stranger still that she’d wrested Chau’s empire out from under him for their benefit.

            And there were still moments when Tendo felt his breath catch ever so slightly in her presence. Better not to address it at all than let himself go down that road.

            “I’ve opened up a legitimate channel with the Russian sources again,” Liang was saying. Tendo glanced over at her with skepticism that she blithely ignored. “Vladivostok won’t be fully operational again for at least another year, but they’ve got a temporary collaborative base set up that’s handling most of the European munitions.”

            “Vladivostok’s been decommissioned for ages. Why wouldn’t they just work with Hong Kong’s ‘dome rather than stake out Russian ground?”

            “Ah, ah. The left hand knows not what the right hand doeth,” Liang said. “Above my access, paygrade and acceptable risk level to find that out.”

            “Fair enough.” The coffee maker beeped readiness and Tendo poured two mugs, dumping several packets of sweetener into his. Liang took hers and sipped it straight black, gallantly ignoring the metallic aftertaste of the stuff; Tendo would forever mourn the days of good coffee, accepting his fate for ration grade in its place. “When can we start expecting them to come knocking at the Marshall’s door?”

            “They won’t be. There’s arrangements made with R & D for material exchange.”

            “Is that code for something I’d rather not know about?”

            “Absolutely.” Liang took another sip of coffee, looking amused by Tendo’s resigned sigh. “Oh, stop. It’s not as though we’re going to war with each _other_ with the things. They’ll sit around in silos for a few decades and then get dismantled and buried in the desert somewhere. It’s all for show these days anyway.”

            “Tell that to the Mark Six development team. They’re building new combat series Jaegers like there really is no tomorrow.”

            “Children and their toys,” Liang said dismissively. “The Academy’s churning out a new class of Rangers to play in the exclusion zones. You’d want a shiny new Jaeger to stomp around in if it was you being sent on pointless patrols.”

            Tendo slurped his coffee loudly, setting the mug down in the sink with a thud. “Nihilism doesn’t become you, Miss Shé.”

            “I’m being _realistic,_ thank you. Jaegers chasing after breachlings doesn’t have the same power as going toe to toe with giant monsters.”

            He couldn’t deny the truth in that. The Breach zone patrols were as much for appearances as they were for safety precautions. It was ground teams that handled the breachling hunts, not Jaegers. A 300-foot tall war machine running down packs of the much smaller creatures was more ridiculous to imagine than inspiring.

            “Well, thank you so much for bringing this sunshine into my morning,” he said dryly. “I almost wish I was sitting through Doctor Gottlieb’s LOCCENT review right now.”

            Liang wrinkled her nose. “ _Mister_ Gottlieb. The proper Gottlieb’s out in Iceland.”

            “Nope, they’ve both got doctorates. It’s been hell trying not to mix them up.” Tendo rubbed at his eyes wearily. “Alright, Liang. Was this all we needed to talk about? I’m gonna be wired for sound now and I might as well try to get work done here if I can’t sleep.”

            The tug on his arm was unexpected; Tendo found himself being pulled away from the counter and towards the door, Liang’s grip firm. “We’re going out.”

            Tendo’s insides gave an interesting lurch. “I- wait, no we’re not-”

            “We are, actually. You’ve got that pasty, ‘haven’t seen the sun in weeks’ look and my schedule is open for the day. We’re going outside.”

            “Liang, I have stuff I need to _do._ ” That earned him a wry look that made Tendo flush, and he pulled his arm away. She let go obligingly, one hand on the door handle as she waited. “I…look. Can we just. Can we not? With this?”

            “Why?”

            Tendo pinched at the bridge of his nose, exasperated. “This is the epitome of a relationship that should stay professional. You helped Hermann out, which I appreciate. You didn’t sabotage us either, which is really…I don’t know. Polite? Plus all the work you do for us with the black market shit which everyone _knows_ we need but no one wants to _do-”_

            Liang put her hand on his shoulder, the slight squeeze jarring him out of his train of thought. He blinked down at her.

            “I don’t spend my days longing for you, you know.” She looked quietly amused again. “I’m just asking you to go outside and do something with me for a little while. Our work eats us, Tendo. I’m tired of it being my first priority all the time. Aren’t you?”

            He nodded. “A bit, yeah.”

            “So let’s go. A day away isn’t going to hurt anyone.”

            Tendo wavered for a moment; Liang’s hand was still on his shoulder, her touch light. He nodded. “Fine. Compelling argument."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 _Out_ involved leaving the Shatterdome entirely. Tendo felt unpleasantly guilty for leaving under false pretenses, looking out the window of the cab they had taken downtown and trying not to think about the work he was leaving to everyone in LOCCENT. The fact that Herc frequently encouraged making Lars’ life just that much harder didn’t make him feel any better.

            “Stop pining out the window for your desk,” Liang said. She was on her phone again, scrolling through an email.

            “I’m not the one that brought work _with_ me,” Tendo retorted. “Where are we going?”

            “My clandestine warehouse by the docks. I’m kidnapping you and we’ll be in Qingdao by tomorrow.”

            “Ah, of course. Sipping champagne and watching the sunset from your skyscraper penthouse?”

            “Right in one,” Liang said. “I’ll finally get that suit tailored for you.”

            The Shatterdome was situated within Long Beach, overshadowed by the half-finished carcass of a Wall of Life that stretched across the shoreline. Tendo studied the Wall as the cab wove through dense traffic; completed segments were covered in graffiti and dense flyposting that crawled up as high as the defacers could reach. Some parts were forever incomplete, the Wall’s skeleton of steel beams and struts standing bare.

            Liang glanced over at him and followed his gaze, frowning slightly. “Is the Corps ever going to knock it down?”

            “I don’t know. Eventually, maybe. The city might just do it themselves and ask us to foot the bill.”

            “Shouldn’t be too much of a strain on your accounts.” Tendo snorted, earning a mild reproving glance. “Don’t say otherwise. We all know who’s got the real power these days.”

            Tendo’s wry humor faded and he looked over at her. “That’s not true. The Corps is a service.”

            “A service that should have been mothballed after the Wave, but look where we are,” Liang replied. “Saving the world comes with expectations.”

            “Saving it doesn’t mean we’re equipped for _running_ it.” The memory Mako’s rebuke for his too-similar comments sat in the back of Tendo’s mind, making him uncomfortable. He wondered how many people said the same things to her and Raleigh…and to the Marshall. No wonder Herc looked even more tired than usual lately.

            The cab pulled up to the curb. Liang covered the fare without giving Tendo the opportunity to offer splitting it; he tried not to look at the outrageous number on the meter as he climbed out. The air was sticky with humidity that curled in from the sea and hung heavy around them, and Tendo immediately wished for a breeze to push it away.

            “Oh, will you _stop_ with the sulking looks.” Liang’s tone was light; the uncomfortable conversation was clearly swerving into other topics. Tendo scowled without real animosity.

            “I’m not sulking. Just readjusting to direct sunlight.”

            “They really don’t let you cubicle types outside, do they?”        

            “Personal choice. I find fresh air interferes with my delicate mole-person constitution.”

            Liang laughed, and Tendo found himself pleased at the lingering smile on her face. They walked alongside the Wall before veering off across the street. Several of the buildings were standing empty, their windows boarded up and doors held tight with heavy tumbler locks. Lines of dark-colored flyposting were slapped across them, bearing stylized writing over what was unmistakably a kaiju skull.  Tendo slowed to read one, frowning.

            “ _Sing ye the hosanna anteversal,_ ” he said. Liang snorted. “Ah, jeez. There’s a BuenaKai temple in Hollywood, isn’t there?”

            “There was. A lot of medicinal trade was sent their way after Colorado.”

            “Was? Are they still…y’know…”

            “I don’t keep tabs on that corner of the market anymore,” Liang said dryly. “But if they went that particular avenue I’m _sure_ it would be all over the news.”

            Tendo shook his head and kept walking. The flyposted BuenaKai posters followed them doggedly across the buildings until it was replaced mid-‘ _ye’_ with posters for a local band, the murky black and blue changing over to eye-searing yellow.

            “So when you say _medicinal_ ,” he began. Liang shrugged.

            “Usual cultist crap. Dried skin and eye membranes, mucus, brain tissues…” she glanced over at Tendo at the sharp sound he made, grinning. “Not in the way you’re thinking. You know headchangers?”

            “Seen them mentioned on restricted material lists before. Why?”

            Liang grinned wider. “They’re made of cerebral cortex tissue. BuenaKai use them as communion wafers.”

            She cracked up laughing. Tendo looked shocked and disgusted, glancing over his shoulder at the flypostings.

            “You’re not being serious. They cannot be using _hallucinogens_ as communion wafers. That’s-”

            “Batshit insanity? I agree. Cults aren’t much for sensible decision-making.” She looked unbothered by the idea, still grinning. “And breachling materials are the only available substitute for real kaiju stock. All those hunts by stupid civilians getting eaten aren’t always for trophies.”

            Tendo groaned, pressing his hands to his face. “ _Wonderful._ Something else to get an ulcer over. _Thank_ you, Liang.”

            “You can save the world, but you can’t save everybody from themselves,” Liang said. She pulled his hands away, looping her arm through his and leaning against him. “This isn’t your problem. You know the Corps has their own security measures for these sorts of things.”

            He didn’t answer, though with a visible push of effort he let the fresh worry drop. Liang nodded firmly. “That’s the spirit.”

            “You still haven’t said where we’re going.”

            She pulled him along, pushing the door open to a building Tendo had mistakenly thought was abandoned; it was grubby on the outside with covered windows, but inside was thriving with people and the smell of fresh food.

            “Port towns,” Liang said. “Always have the best stock quickest, if they can get it.”

            Tendo gazed around, gently removing his arm from hers. “Miss Shé, are you taking me on a lunch date?”

            She gave him a mild smile, leaving him to claim a corner booth. Tendo looked around again for a moment; the place had the air of a well-kept secret, the other people keeping to themselves and the sorts of fresh food Tendo would have had to trade months of ration tickets to get at. He grinned a little to himself and followed after, sitting beside Liang in the corner.

           

 


	10. Chapter 10




           

            There were no less than twenty things sitting on the desk that needed Herc’s immediate attention, and he hadn’t so much as touched them since he had arrived in his office an hour prior. There was a window that overlooked the ocean behind the desk and he had pulled his chair up to it, a cup of slowly cooling coffee in his hands as he watched the waves roll against the shore. The office door was firmly closed. He had entertained the thought of locking it but dismissed it as petulance. Music played from the streaming broadcast on his computer and was the only sound in the room; there was a curious sound-eating quality to the office that Herc disliked, and he made the excuse to switch on the holo-screen TV or music whenever possible.

            The ping of a waiting vidcall cut through the music, demanding Herc’s attention. He could push paperwork back as much as he liked but there was no hiding from direct communication. He rolled the chair back across the small space from window to desk, flicking his fingers across the haptic screen.

            “Yes?”

            A LOCCENT operator started to speak and was immediately pushed to the side to make room for Lars. Herc stared at him, and when the Marshall made no move to speak Lars cleared his throat.  
            _“I was supposed to be reviewing LOCCENT Officer Choi for the next four hours, Marshall. Do you happen to know why he’s taken today to abandon his post?”_

“I think ‘abandon’ is a strong term,” Herc replied blandly. “You could always check the schedule. Maybe you got your days mixed up.”

            “ _Yes. Perhaps so,”_ Lars said, equally bland and clearly unbelieving. Herc had expressed less in words and more in general attitude how he felt about the unending stream of reviews, interviews and reports Lars conducted and filed with the UN to justify his presence. He had yet to become adjusted to the level of uncooperative people he had to deal with on a daily basis, but he was clearly trying.

            “Is there something else you need, Doctor Gottlieb?”

            “ _No. Thank you for your time, Marshall Hansen.”_

            The screen winked out and the interrupted music stream began to play again. Herc took a little vindictive pleasure in the quick defeat but it soon faded. He sipped from his cooled cup and looked at the stack of folders and neatly-stapled packets that waited for him; his eyes ached with phantom strain at the mere thought of having to read all of them. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the featureless ceiling.

            “I could leave right now and no one would be able to stop me,” he said to himself. “I could go out on the helipad _right now_.”

            And where would he fly to, he wondered. Maybe Iceland to see that nightmare city for himself…or maybe he’d fly over it and into the waiting active volcano it nested in. The idea of plunging into molten magma had about the same appeal as paperwork, but at least looking over expense reports had less chance of ending in screaming death. Herc dredged up his Marshall attitude and hitched it on like a mask; dull patience and endurance and an eye on the clock until he could leave the office with a clean conscience.

            The day was overcast in a thick, silvery-grey blanket of clouds that allowed only slivers of sunlight to break through. A few of those weak shafts found their way through Herc’s window as he read, reviewed and signed off, throwing soft shadows across the room. He paused in his work when he felt the warmth of the struggling sun, turning the chair back to the window for a moment. The view was fairly dull and ugly, in honesty; the city had retreated back from the beach and the Shatterdome’s location, the no man’s land between outpost and civilian centers broken up by with a few abandoned buildings, fencing and the slow, inevitable creep of nature reclaiming what humans no longer used.

            Herc got up from his chair and stretched, wincing at the protesting twinges in his back. He was getting older, he admitted to himself. It didn’t help that sedentary living was letting all the aches and pains settle in too deep. He went back to the window with the excuse of taking a moment’s break, looking from the grey ocean to the empty, fenced borders. An undulating cloud of black above the scrubby trees and grasses caught his eye; he blinked at it in confusion before several specks of black broke off from the sinuous mass, and he realized it was a flock of birds.

            The murmuration twisted and turned on itself, raising high into the air and then breaking apart into individuals as they plummeted, reforming again into the cloud. Herc watched in fascination as it drifted across the field, small breaks in the cloud cover allowing sunlight to gleam dully against feathers. The murmuration rose again and shook itself to pieces, the birds scattering. Herc sighed as his only solid excuse to ignore his work dispersed over the city, a few groups of the birds trying to reform the mass to no avail.

            As though on cue the vidcall pinged again. He glanced at the screen and sighed in relief, a pleased smile on his face as he answered.

            “Good afternoon, Doctor Lightcap,” he said. Lightcap inclined her head in greeting. “Wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Didn’t miss a meeting, did I?”

            “ _You didn’t, no. But I was wondering why Doctor Gottlieb did.”_

Herc winced slightly. Seemed like all the reassurances he’d given Gottlieb of stable working conditions out in the field weren’t so accurate after all. “Ah, yes, well…there’s been a slight change to his...what was the meeting for?”

            _“A progress report on AI algorithms and Pons neural handshake support interfacing,_ ” Lightcap said. She didn’t seem too upset, but there was an edge to her tone that made Herc feel unwelcomed guilt. Exiling his J-Tech department head hadn’t been the best decision he’d ever made. “ _I haven’t received any of his work on the electrochemical-cyberneural signal integration either. That’s been overdue for almost a week.”_

            The terminology went so far over Herc’s head he was certain it was skirting orbit. He didn’t let it show and simply nodded. “I’ll let him know that you’re waiting on it.”

            Lightcap frowned at him; vague answers made for delays Herc knew could never be afforded, but coming clean didn’t feel like the best option at the moment.

            “ _I’ve forwarded the dossier to him for the next stage of AI installation into the onboard servers,_ ” she said. Herc nodded again. “ _Marshall, is there something I should know?_ ”

            Herc’s immediate instinct was to lie. The feeling of petulance came back full-force and he sighed, head hanging briefly. “Doctor Gottlieb is in Iceland. Apparently without the decent internet connection I assured him he’d have access to.”

            There was a heavy beat of silence. “ _I see,”_ Lightcap said. Herc winced at her tone.

            “I’ll contact the base to make sure communications are up and running,” he said, trying to make amends. Lightcap’s stoic expression wasn’t helping the surge of guilt. “Immediately.”

            That helped a little. Lightcap didn’t look pleased, but the growing disapproval dispersed. “ _Out of curiosity, what use could he be in Hekla, aside from keeping Doctor Geiszler company?”_ Herc blinked at her in surprise, and that made her soften with slight amusement. “ _Confidentiality went out the window with the radio leak, Marshall. Everyone’s keeping tabs._ ”

            “I’m sure Lars’d have a field day filing a report about that,” Herc muttered dryly. Lightcap snorted. “Sorry, sorry. But…would it redeem me in your eyes at all if I said I’d sent him along with Newt for his own good?”

            _“It might, depending. Was the family reunion that bad?_ ”

            “As close to a complete implosion as I’ve ever seen him,” Herc said. “Being out in the field doesn’t agree with either of them very well, but Newt and Hermann’s partnership is…a stabilizing factor. One doesn’t do well for long without the other.”

            “ _Fair enough._ _I’m still angry about the delay, though._ ”

            Herc bowed his head in apology. “I didn’t think they’d be so isolated work would grind to a halt, Caitlin. I’ll make it up to you. _Both_ of you.”

            “ _I hope so,_ ” Lightcap said. “ _I’m getting a lot of pressure to get installations finalized. This fourteen-month time window doesn’t leave as much room for trial and error as I’d like.”_

            Herc scowled heavily. “Fourteen months doesn’t leave enough time for anything to be done safely.” Lightcap gave him a look. “It’s true. Any Jaeger rolled off the line in that amount of time’ll need maintenance around the clock.”

            “ _And how long did it take for Chrome Brutus to be rebuilt and put back on the field, exactly?”_

“That was a totally different circumstance.” The amused disbelief on Lightcap’s face made Herc grin, waving her off. “That was rebuilding, like you said. Most of the stuff she needed to work was already there, mostly.”

            _“Your hypocrisy is a delight, Marshall.”_

            “Hey, now. That’s stretching it too far. I turn a blind eye to facts is all.” He leaned back in his chair and swiveled idly, casting another look outside. The murmuration was still trying to reform, coaxing errant members of the flock back into the swirling cloud. “How’s Anchorage been, aside from the AI issues? Anything major?”

            _“Nothing, unless the increased UN oversight counts. They’re getting nervous.”_

A now-familiar pit began to form in Herc’s stomach, but he shrugged. “They don’t like us, we don’t like them, and the public likes big robots that go about punching monsters to death. It all comes out in the wash.”

            “ _Maybe. But there’s factions starting to spring up, you know. Not just about us but on a global scale. That attack on SETI-”_

Herc frowned at her. “Attack? What attack?”

            Lightcap looked surprised by the question. She took off her glasses and fidgeted with them, polishing an imaginary spot off the lens. “ _Kind of a grassroots movement of…I guess it could be called ‘planetary isolationists’. Some people who could…possibly be in support the Corps… are taking actions into their own hands. SETI lost four dishes a few days ago. Arson.”_

“I don’t understand…that dish array _listens_ for ET, they don’t broadcast.”

            _“Tell that to scared, angry people who don’t want more aliens at their doorstep. We won the war, but it’s looking more and more like we set back exploration and anything to do with space back into the Stone Age._ ”

            For a moment Herc could almost understand the motivation behind such destructive behavior, and he hated that he could. No one wanted to endure more trouble after so much had shown up uninvited. No one wanted to look _up_ anymore. The fact that the Anteverse had come knocking the door in from the deepest sea didn’t seem to register now that the first Breach was sealed and gone. Earth was a tiny, vulnerable speck of dust in a sunbeam, but it was all humanity had. The idea of keeping it safe was noble, but the isolationists ideas…

            “There were reports of people trying to get into the Hekla site,” he said slowly. “Isolationists, you think?”

            _“Possible. Looking to knock it down before it got out of control,”_ Lightcap replied. She frowned hard. “ _So of course everyone in charge took the opposite course of action and let it grow like a weed.”_

            “Best laid plans,” Herc said, tone dry. Lightcap gave a humorless laugh. “Shit. If the isolationists are doing these things and try and tie it to us…”

            _“I believe the term is ‘public relations nightmare’. You might want to look into smoothing things over before it gets out of control.”_

            “Mm. Should I ask Lars for advice on how to field unending public scorn?”

            _“Couldn’t hurt._ ”

            Herc nodded, looking sour. “Might as well get some use out of him. Have to wonder why no one told me about this…” He looked back at his desk; under the mountains of work, something told him a memo or briefing about the SETI incident might just be there, waiting for his disinterested attention. He sighed heavily. “Alright. First things first I’ll get Hermann up to speed and back in communication with you, Doctor Lightcap. I’ll handle the rest as I can.”

            Lightcap nodded, giving him a sympathetic smile. “ _Sounds good by me. Small steps, Marshall. Take care.”_

            The screen winked out again and Herc leaned forward on the desk, elbows on the edge and his head briefly held in his hands as he fought off a wave of bitter tiredness. “Small steps…”


	11. Chapter 11

 

 

 

            _“Now call me crazy, but that whole debacle with SETI is just a little bit counterproductive. Destroying the things that listen_ _for little green men is not the same thing as sending out messages inviting more aliens to our front door. We-”_ The DJ’s words suddenly faded into a harsh wash of static. Raleigh sighed and adjusted the old radio’s dial, carefully edging the knob left and right until the signal’s clarity cut back mid-sentence. “- _waste of resources. Trying to ignore problems doesn’t mean they go away, y’know? So, persecuting people trying to protect us from those problems don’t do any good. And yes, you firebug maniacs, I am talking to YOU._ _All you’ve done is break something that can be used to keep us safe.”_

The DJ took an audible drag on his cigarette, the soft exhale blowing another roll of static into the mic. “ _Being scared doesn’t justify causing millions in damage to that telescope array. Think of it this way: just because the weatherman predicts a thunderstorm doesn’t mean you get to call him a witch an’ burn him at the stake.”_

There was an indistinct rattling sound as the DJ shuffled through his usual stack of papers, the half-hour news update drawing to a close. Raleigh liked the pirate radio station, having picked up the habit of listening to it from Tendo. DJ Icarus was just as interesting to listen to as the music itself. The Corps had been forced to make a formal disavowal of affiliation after the station broadcasted top secret information, but Icarus didn’t seem to take it personally. If anything, he seemed more fiercely loyal to the Corps than before, and all the more determined to provide the unfiltered truth of kaiju-related news to his listeners.

            “ _Alright. Down from my soapbox ‘til your next news update, listeners. Be good and stay out of trouble. And for those of you complaining about the static in the signal? Tell you what. You spot me a couple thousand for new equipment and I’ll be happy to clean it up for you.”_

            Raleigh laughed as the mic clicked off, _“Nobody’s Fault But Mine”_ beginning to play. He finished dressing and spared himself a glance in the mirror, running a hand through his hair. He looked a little rougher around the edges these days with his hair growing longer and the beginnings of a beard on his face. He tilted his head to one side and then the other as he studied the reflection. Mako was due for another trip to Oblivion Bay soon; it wouldn’t do to go with her looking so unprofessionally unkempt. The consultations that had started with the beginning of the Jaeger revival program had clearly stated they were both in charge of directing the salvage efforts, and Raleigh often wondered who had made _that_ decision, exactly – Mako had been the one to rebuild Gipsy Danger and Chrome Brutus. The only mechanical prowess he brought to the table was being able to weld a solid joint together.

            But then again, maybe that was the appeal. A Ranger who could multitask as a welder? Who _wouldn’t_ want that kind of talent along? Raleigh smiled to himself as he left his quarters, following the vague presence of Mako’s Drift bond like a compass to her workshop. Habit made him want to follow the yellow striped path to the Scrapyard but he veered left instead towards the main Jaeger bay, humming and idly wondering if the hydraulic scrapping in Romeo Blue’s arm had been completed yet. So preoccupied with his thoughts, he didn’t even realize he was on a collision course until he clipped against the other person, causing them to drop a clipboard and several files that immediately scattered their contents everywhere.

            “Ah, shoot! I’m sorry, I didn’t watch where I was going, I-” Raleigh started, kneeling down with the sputtering man to collect the lost papers. The man scowled at him and Raleigh went dead quiet; Lars yanked several papers out of his hand, stuffing them back into a folder.

            “I am fully aware you weren’t watching,” he said icily. “Do you typically barrel down the hall like a loose freight train?”

            Raleigh found this highly unfair, but didn’t protest it. Lars _was_ the injured party after all. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to knock into you.”

            “Duly noted. Are you going to help me clean this up or not?”

            “Yes, sir.” Raleigh gathered up as many pages as Lars would allow – the man snatched several reports away from him, muttering about security and _for authorized eyes only_ – and returned them only after Lars had, with very pointed silence, waited for him to rearrange everything by number and report type. Raleigh could feel his patience starting to strain by the time everything was back in order.

            “Do try to be more mindful,” Lars said. “I suppose it’s just as well you knocked into me. I’m looking for Ranger Mori’s research station. Do you work with her? I’ve been trying to find it for a while now but this place is a labyrinth.”

            Raleigh blinked, not saying anything for a moment; he knew he looked a little rough, but not being recognized at all was a new one. His brief silence visibly lowered Lars’ already cool opinion of him, and he frowned severely.

            “I asked you a question,” he said. “You can give me a basic yes or no.”

            The annoyance spiked and Raleigh took a deep breath. “Yes, sir. I know where her workshop is. I can show you if you like.”

            “That’s not necessary. Simple directions will do fine.” Something about his tone implied that _simple_ was all Lars expected from him. Raleigh’s annoyance was gradually turning into sharp dislike, but he couldn’t bring himself to be rude. Not yet, at any rate.

            “It _is_ a maze in here,” he said. “Simple directions can still get you turned around. Better for someone who knows the grounds to play tour guide.”

            Lars sighed as though heavily put-upon, nodding his agreement. “Very well. Thank you.”

            The walk through the corridors was brisk and uncomfortably quiet. Lars had been going the entirely wrong direction; either he’d had too much pride to stop and ask for help, or he _had_ asked, and been purposefully directed towards furthest reaches of the ‘dome. As they reached the halfway point back to the correct direction, Lars gave him a cool look.

            “I’ve already been this way.”

            “The access hallway’s a shortcut to the R and D department, Doctor Gottlieb. It’s the fastest route.” Lars frowned at him as they took a left down a green-marked junction. Raleigh bore the scrutiny with fraying patience, eventually glancing back. “Yes, sir?”

            “We haven’t been introduced, have we?”

            “No sir, we never met face to face. I’ve worked on stuff for you before, though.” Raleigh was surprised at himself as the words slipped out. A long-stifled resentment was suddenly boiling to the surface and he couldn’t seem to force it back down. “For five years or so. Up in Sitka.”

            Lars stiffened, gaze immediately going to the floor and his face showing sudden strain. “I… believe I can find my own way from here, thank you. You may be on your way.”

            A surge of vindictive anger shot so strongly through Raleigh it made him dizzy; who the hell was Lars Gottlieb to dismiss him? Unbidden, unwelcome memories of cold, grey days that bled into miserable nights and casting himself along like human flotsam flitted through Raleigh’s mind. He suddenly wanted to tell Lars every ugly truth about the Wall, how the people building it had no faith in it, who worked themselves sometimes to death because there was no other choice. He wanted to crush the shreds of superiority Lars had still managed to harbor – _I was there in the middle of the mistake you made. I know exactly how badly you’ve failed._

            It would be so easy to take him down a few more pegs. No one would care. Hell, there were plenty of people who would be envious they couldn’t have joined in. It would be so utterly, viciously _easy._

            Raleigh closed his eyes and gave a hard, quick shake of his head, the vindictive ember burning in him simmering down with a hard push of effort. “Let’s go. We’re almost to Ranger Mori’s workshop.”

            He turned and kept walking. Lars looked up at him in shock, hurrying after as Raleigh swung down another hallway. “I…wait. Wait a moment.”

            “She’s probably busy, so whatever you’re gonna talk to her about I suggest you make it quick,” Raleigh said. There was an edge to his voice he didn’t trust, and he refused to look over at Lars. “She’s got a lot to do before heading out to Oblivion Bay and the schedule she’s on isn’t forgiving.”

            “Will you please wait?”

            “If it’s a review or something she’s probably gonna ask you to reschedule it. And besides facts, she’s a senior ranking officer around here so _you_ giving _her_ a review isn’t a top priority.”

            “Sir, will you _stop?_ ”

            Raleigh didn’t stop, though he did slow enough for Lars to be able to walk in stride with him again. “I’m not anybody’s _sir._ ”

            “Then who are you? I’m…I apologize. I don’t know you.”

            “I was a Ranger before I was a Wall-crawler,” Raleigh said. The ember burned and he pushed it further down, willing it to smother. “I washed up on an Alaskan beach after my brother and my Jaeger died, and afterwards I signed up for the Wall. I signed up to _your_ side. Who the hell was I to you then?”

            Lars swallowed hard, gaze skipping around the empty hallway. The awareness that it was only him and Raleigh was clearly unnerving him. “You’re asking a rhetorical question. Thousands of people worked on the Sitka site alone, I couldn’t possibly have kept track of every person. That wasn’t my job.” At Raleigh’s silence, Lars grew defensive. “What do you want from me, Ranger? An apology? My career has devolved into one long, unending exercise in public flogging. I’m a ruined man. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

            “Not really, no. An apology is a promise to be _better,_ ” Raleigh said sharply. “If all you’re getting out of this is embarrassment about how you wrecked your life, you haven’t learned a goddamned thing.”

            He walked so quickly Lars was nearly jogging to keep up with him. He stopped short at the closed door to Mako’s workshop, willing himself to knock gently; before he could even raise his hand the door swung open, Mako looking alarmed. Drift bonds were unique, deep things, and they carried as much bad as they did good. Raleigh felt remorse finally smother the ember, the anger cooling off.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, low and earnest. “I’m fine.”

            Mako looked past him to Lars, still hurrying to catch up. A look of understanding passed over her face and she squeezed Raleigh’s shoulder.

            “I know,” she said. “I can handle him from here.”

            She stood back and opened the door further, inviting Lars in with a silent waving of her hand. He slunk into the workshop without a word, unable to meet Raleigh’s eye.

 

* * *

 

           

            The skeleton of Tacit Ronin threw long shadows across the bay floor. It had lost both arms to rust and cannibalized parts years ago, and the framework of new limbs lay at its feet. The helmet-like Conn-Pod was tilted towards the ground as though studying the new parts of itself, the golden visor smashed to pieces. For all that battle, weather and time had damaged Ronin, Raleigh easily saw the martial grace it carried itself with in every hard line of its chassis, the hull bearing its scars proudly.

            His vantage point from the catwalk allowed him to see nearly every angle of the partially restored Jaeger. He had sat there for a long time watching the day crew tend to her, cracking open her chest and baring the empty socket of her core. Eventually a new heart would rest there, an improved design on the Mark Five series power cores that the Jaeger could run on indefinitely. Raleigh imagined it would be sun-like, a contained star hidden within the machine, and he envied whoever got to pilot Tacit Ronin once she was restored.

            A sense of presence made him glance over his shoulder, and he smiled a little as Mako sat down next to him, arms hooked through the catwalk railings and legs dangling over the side.

            “Her heart won’t be as bright,” she said, picking up the thread of Raleigh’s thoughts. “It might burn hotter, but it won’t be the same.”

            “Still beautiful, though.”

            “Always. And each one has its own pattern of beats.” Mako studied Ronin with her head tilting slightly to one side. “I miss ours.”

            Raleigh nodded. “Not too many pilots can say they’ve gone through more than one rig. I miss Chrome Brutus just as much as Danger.”

            “It was a steadfast little thing,” Mako said. “It synched its pattern to us almost at once. I wish I could have done more for it.”

            The Mark Three was a ruin now, unsalvageable scrap intertwined with the skeleton of a long-dead Category Four kaiju. The nightmarish Screel had beheaded Chrome in their battle, trying to swallow the Conn-Pod whole and eat them alive. Providence or impossible good luck had saved them in the end as the Second Wave collapsed in on itself. The desert where Chrome had fallen was an exclusion zone now, cordoned off by Corps decree. That didn’t stop people from sneaking in anyway; stray breachlings still roamed there, and if the trespassers came out again or not was entirely up to chance.

            “Not much you could’ve done,” Raleigh said belatedly, half lost in thought. “You did as best you could with what you had.”

            “And now I have more, and I don’t know what to do with it,” Mako replied. Raleigh glanced at her. “This next trip to Oblivion Bay may just empty it out completely. Everything still viable is coming home with us.”

            “Kinda sound less than thrilled about that.”

            “We do not have to build titans to crush insects,” she said. “All this work in restoration and commissions of new Mark fleets is not to combat breachlings. I do not know why they want so many active Jaegers when there is no threat to contain.”

            “There could be. The first Breach was a pretty nasty surprise. Then the Second Wave rolled in. Better to have them and not need them, right?” Mako’s silence was answer enough. Raleigh frowned down at Ronin. “So…what’d Gottlieb want, anyway?”

            Mako stayed quiet for a long moment. “To ask about Hermann.” That caught Raleigh off-guard; he looked askance at her but she didn’t seem to notice. “It’s not the first time we have spoken. He knew I worked with him on Jaeger coding and wanted to talk to me about it…but then, after Hermann left for Iceland, he simply started asking me about Hermann himself.”

            “That’s…odd.”

            “Not really. They never worked directly together, but when Lars was part of the Corps he was technically Hermann’s superior.” Raleigh scoffed. “Seniority has no sense of irony.”

            “God, no kidding. So what’d Lars wanna know? How many times Hermann messed up and wrote _3_ instead of _5_?” Mako finally looked over at him, her expression slightly disapproving. It was enough for Raleigh to relent, head bowing down apologetically. “Sorry. What did he want to know?”

            “How Hermann was doing. If his leg has been troubling him. If…if he’s happy with the Corp. Being partnered up with Newton. He asked _many_ questions about their relationship. He can’t really wrap his head around it.”

            “To be fair, neither can they sometimes.”

            The trace of disapproval faded as Mako smiled. “And yet they are as close as any other bonded pair of Rangers could ever hope to be. I think that’s what bewilders Lars so much. You never knew Hermann before Pitfall like I did. He used to be very…”

            She trailed off in search of the right word. “Distant?” Raleigh supplied, and she nodded.

            “Distant,” she echoed. “So involved in seeing the world’s coding that he did not want to be distracted by interacting directly with it.”

            “Lonely way to be.”

            “Lars thought so. Or so he told me, after Hermann left. He’s surprised at the turn in behavior.”

            “Well, now that he’s back they’ll have all the time in the world to catch up,” Raleigh said dryly. “Provided we can keep ‘em on the same continent long enough.”

            They both laughed ruefully, falling quiet again as they looked out over the busy Jaeger bay. Raleigh’s thoughts wandered aimlessly before a soft roll of static caught his ear; he glanced over at Mako with a frown as she took the walkie-talkie clipped to her belt and switched it off.

            “You would think with all the high tech equipment we have, I’d be able to get a walkie with better reception,” she said. “Either we are getting subpar tech or this Shatterdome is a signal-killer.”

            “To be fair, the place used to be a pit of OSHA violations,” Raleigh said cheerfully. “I bet once we finally strip all the lead paint it’ll all clear right up.” Mako didn’t dignify him with a response, looking away to hide her exasperated amusement. He grinned and leaned forward against the railing again. They stayed there a long time in the comfort of each other’s presence, and below them Tacit Ronin kept its silent, solemn vigil.


	12. Chapter 12

12.

 

 

            Dawn was a red line on the horizon when Newt woke up. For a moment the unease he felt was directionless, trying to fix to something just beyond his grasp as he sat up in bed, fumbling for his glasses. It was dark in his small trailer, the only light a faint glow of the alarm clock reading 5:45 AM next to his computer. He pushed his glasses on and blinked groggily. The room was quiet, the sky stained richly red and orange with the rising sun.

            No…no, it _wasn’t_ quiet. Newt could feel the faint, insect-like buzz more than he could hear it, setting his teeth on edge and goosebumps prickling over his skin. It was like a flyback transformer’s whine but keener; he got up, poking at his computer in accusation. The holoscreen blinked back to life out of sleep mode, hurting his eyes with the sudden flash of brightness. The buzz ticked up higher and Newt covered his ears.

            “Too early for this shit,” he muttered. The buzz had no sympathy for his discomfort, raising higher and higher before suddenly going flat. His hands fell from his ears and Newt made an irritable mental note to mention it to Eydís. If it was anything like submitting an equipment complaint back in the Shatterdome he was sure it would be put off indefinitely, but idea was comforting all the same.

            Newt got dressed by the light of the holoscreen, poking around in his suitcase for the cleanest things he could find. Fieldwork was all about _work_ rather than maintaining a professional appearance, and no one batted an eye at casual, easily-dirtied and ruined clothing that didn’t require much laundering. Gottlieb had mentioned he had taken on the slovenly appearance of a grad student rather than a proper Corps scientist. Newt had retorted that Gottlieb looked like a librarian who had somehow gotten lost in the wild.

            The air was crisp and on the edge of too cold as Newt left the trailer, following the goat track-like trail that lead to the main cluster of research buildings. The night shift crew was heading off to their communal bunks on the other side of the compound; Newt had been equal parts mortified and pleased to see his status as project lead entitled him to a personal trailer, though it was lonely. Gottlieb had taken residence in another part of the compound, away from Newt’s quarters. Over the years they had been unwilling to tolerant to just accepting of their constantly shared space, and Newt found himself missing the close-quartered living arrangements.

            Newt wended his way through the compound until he reached a squat, boxy temporary building that housed the lab research space. It was dark and quiet inside – Newt listened hard, trying to seek out the high pitched buzz without success. Probably just faulty wiring in his trailer that would end in an electrical fire. Shrugging off the idea, Newt grabbed a cup of gritty, dull-tasting coffee from the coffeemaker stowed in the far corner, going to his work station.

            The freedom of following his own work schedule hadn’t changed with his assignment here, though the mandatory staff meetings Eydís kept setting up for him interrupted more than he would have liked. Another computer sat in standby and Newt scowled at it, remembering the report he had been halfway through writing. Writing in general was a pleasant idea; getting the idea out coherently was another thing altogether. Newt poked the computer awake and quietly minimized the report file. He had other things to do first, after all.

            He got up, wandering around the lab with his coffee and sneaking looks at his team’s work. The geologists had gathered fresh samples from the city’s ever-expanding borders for analysis; it was troubling to look at the rich volcanic soil turning to metallic chitin, the fleets of nanomachines busily processing the material. Like a bunch of evil earthworms, Newt mused to himself. Soil in one end, alien building material out the other. He passed by the shelf of stored samples, the glass jars packed closely together. The samples from yesterday’s testing were labelled neatly, one sitting on the counter.

            Newt picked the jar up, turning it over in his hands. _Site 7-B_ , the label read. _Pre-construct #1._ He looked on the shelf and took the sample’s companion down.  The label read _Post-construct #1;_ the soil inside looked like brass metal shavings. With a sudden wave of repulsion Newt put both jars back on the shelf and went back to his desk, bringing up his work file and staring blankly at it.

            “C’mon. Write,” he muttered to himself. The shelf of samples made the room feel contaminated, and his fingers tapped on the keys in determined distraction. “You’re smart. Think of shit to write.”

            How about, _This entire endeavor is less about discovery and more about pest control. As project leader I recommend immediate missile deployment_ _and post-mission earth-salting._ Or, _God I don’t want to be here, just let me go home._ Newt scowled at the screen, looking back at the sample shelf.

            “I was done, you know,” he said. “All of this. I helped save the world a couple times and thought, ‘ _hey, this is it. I get to take a break now’._ But no. You had to start shit from beyond the cosmic grave.” He sat back hard, his chair giving a squeak of protest. “Trouble doesn’t always have to come in threes. Sometimes when the curtain drops the shitshow can be _over._ ”

            He didn’t know who he was talking to; the nanomachines weren’t sentient – as far as he knew – and no one else was around to listen. For a sudden, sharply unexpected moment he missed the hivemind. It was a sentiment he harbored and tried not to discuss; Gottlieb was understanding and never pressed for explanation, and everyone else never brought it up. It would have been nice to talk to the hive now. Well, talk and try to interpret the convoluted responses, anyway. The hive had been a baffling companion in conversation at best, their presence sometimes too incomprehensible to compass.

            He missed them all the same. And for all their strange and frustratingly cryptic ways, it would have been good to bounce ideas off them rather than scrabble blindly in the dark for answers. The city was a direct product of the kaiju invasion effort. Like bulldozers, they cleared the way for the colonies of their Precursor masters, leaving the world open for drastic reshaping. Newt could half-recall memories of older invasions, seeing through a thousand different perspectives as worlds fell and rose again in the Precursor’s image. A civilization ripping through planet after planet in search of one that could survive their advanced technology.

            Unbidden, Newt could hear a voice like heavy static, punctuated with clicks and screeches. He closed his eyes and let the memory play like a movie; the Precursor he had confronted stood before him again, arrogant and vicious.

            _Our apex comes with a price,_ it said to him, the flat light of its eyes like spears seeking to impale him. _There is no world to match us. We search…we have searched a long time. In every world, a flaw. We search until we find a world that has no flaws to conflict with our apex. Our universe is full of flaws. We spread through other universes…places of new potential. Places that might hold no flaws._

“And how’d that work out for you, you son of a bitch,” Newt whispered. The Precursor had died, along with unknown thousands of its fellows. Newt had watched it happen. Newt had given the order to _make_ it happen. There had been no other choice but it would never sit entirely right on his conscience, knowing what he had done. Maybe this was some sort of karmic balancing to get back at him – destroy the civilization that built the tech, but have that tech terrify and frustrate him for the rest of his life.

            The report was a lost cause. Newt finished off his coffee with a quiet disgusted sound and shut the computer down again, pushing away from the desk. The clock hanging crooked over a line of whiteboards across the room read 6:30; he could hear the day shift crew talking as they left the commissary building, heading off to their stations.

The first day construction cycle in the city wasn’t due to start for another hour, and he knew there would be a research team dispatched out to the satellite camp to observe, sample and study. Eydís had stopped dropping subtle hints that he should be going with them, met each time with stony silence or outright ignoring the suggestions.

It was a scientist’s job to understand the world around them. This was part of the world the war had left. Newt stood and turned, leaving the lab and heading towards the tent garages, following a grudging impulse.

 

 

* * *

 

 

            The city loomed high above the tiny collection of trailers that made up the satellite camp. One of the geologists riding along with Newt pointed out the rows of strange, rod-like structures that poked upwards through the ground, gleaming dull brass in the weak morning light.

            “It’s like rebar,” he said at Newt’s questioning look. “This area’ll be a new district eventually. The basic framework always appears first.”

            “When did these start growing?” Newt asked.

            “Two days ago,” the geologist replied. “It’s easy to track border expansion. Microorganisms are the first to go, then insects. The soil dehydrates and any remaining organic matter decays. After that the building starts.”

            “The information about the nanotech’s spotty at best,” Newt said, looking over the field of rebar. “I mean, nanotech in general’s still theoretical, but…”

            “Your guess is as good as mine, sir. I know rocks. I _like_ rocks. Microscopic alien machines are beyond me. But the odd thing is, is that the soil conditions in the core contaminated area are exactly like the contamination Hundun caused in Manila. The nanotech conditions are noticeably different.”

            Newt had read the reports about the city cover to cover exhaustively, but he didn’t say so; it was interesting listen to the geologist warm up to the topic in uneasy fascination, eager to pick over the mystery of the place with someone else. “But Manila itself is still there, though. There’s dead zones but nothing else.”

            “Yeah. But Hundun was also a really early invasive specimen,” the geologist said. “Maybe the Manila attack was just a probe into how to prepare construction without actually starting it.”

            The theory followed an idea Newt had had himself, though he didn’t bring it up; he nodded and fell silent again as the jeep pulled up to the biggest trailer, all the passengers hurrying off. The city’s shadow stretched over the cluster of trailers, jagged and cold. It occurred to Newt as he stared at the central tower that he hadn’t let Gottlieb know where he was going. There would have been protests and complaints and demands to come along with him, which Newt appreciated. But at the same time, for as much fear and unease that he felt for the place, coming to the city for the first time alone seemed the best idea. Get his own impressions, make his own judgments.

            “Doctor Geiszler,” a voice called. He blinked out of his reverie and turned, raising a hand in greeting as one of the other project scientists came out to greet him. Their introduction was brief and cut straight back to other matters; a native Icelandic volcanologist, Doctor Pállsdottir was less fascinated by the city than greatly disgusted about what it was doing to Mount Hekla.

            “You see this?” she asked, walking with him to the furthest outskirts of the new rebar field and scooping up a handful of soil. “Dead. This was live soil only yesterday. And beyond that, seismograph reads minute vibrations coming out from the central tower a half-mile down but no sign of eruption. Hekla is one of the most active volcanoes in Iceland. Since this started, not one eruption. Not even smoke.”

            “I read it might be being powered geothermally,” Newt said. “Where’s all the magma going, if not, y’know…out?”

            “We don’t know,” Pállsdottir said. “It must be being _repurposed._ The amount of pressure that should be building up would normally lead to cataclysmic eruptions. But there’s no gaseous pressure buildup, nothing! This…this _perversion_ of what’s happening…”

            She trailed off, fuming. Newt’s knowledge of volcanoes stopped at ‘lava is hot’, though he couldn’t help but sympathize. He’d felt the same kind of frustration more than he liked to think about. “Well…hopefully we’ll be able to figure it out and stop it.”

            Despite the weakness of his reassurance, Pállsdottir seemed a little mollified. She waved Newt along to follow her towards the main trailer, holding the door open for him. The inside was already bustling with activity; the volcanologist team had staked out a large area that they split with the geologists, sharing data and arguments amiably over more of the strong, cheap instant coffee.

            “So, Doctor Geiszler. What are you going to be doing here?” Pállsdottir said over the din, packing her field gear into a weathered, rather singed hiker backpack. Newt made a vague noise, gesturing towards the city through the half-shaded window.

            “Investigating,” he said. Pállsdottir waited for an elaboration, and when none came she frowned. “I’m…well. I’m not used to team leading, so…I was gonna…”

            He looked around the room awkwardly. No one else was paying much attention to him, and he felt with a sinking heart just how irrelevant his leadership really was. Everyone but him knew what they were supposed to be doing and who to report it to. He felt like a figurehead at best, foisted on a group that didn’t need him at all. He realized how much he could suddenly relate to Lars Gottlieb, and deeply resented it.

            “There’s a base camp inside the city,” Pállsdottir was saying, her voice cutting through his self-pity. “I’m headed that way before we go towards the core access.”

            “Oh? I… _oh,_ ” Newt said, grabbing onto the hook at once. “Yeah. I think I’ll swing by, see how things are holding up there.”

            Pállsdottir nodded. “Good. It could use some inspection. Maybe even ask about the new access tunnels into the core from district seven.”

            Newt grabbed a legal pad and pen off the desk beside him, taking notes as Pállsdottir casually recommended people to talk to and questions to ask. He followed her out with the day shift team as they headed out; a well-trodden path lead from the camp to an arched entryway into the city proper. The place was eerily silent except for the sighs of wind that threaded through the towers, setting the thick cables to swaying.

Newt’s thoughts trailed to old memories again, and for a moment he was in the hive’s strange constructed world once more, Meathead beside him as he walked into the depths of the alien Drift space. He blinked and shook the memory off, watching a flock of birds circling around the central tower in an undulating veil, the murmuration dispelling away from the tower as light flickered on inside its spiny trunk. The place had the same unreal feeling as the hive’s empty constructs, utterly out of place in Newt’s perceptions. He brushed his hand against a wall and shivered at how cold the rough chitin felt.

Pállsdottir and her fellows stopped into the base camp only briefly before heading out towards the core access tunnels; she nodded to Newt as she passed by, and he waved weakly to her retreating back. There was a Corps security detail in the camp along with a few researchers talking amongst themselves, more attentive to their work than the man leading their project. Newt sidled past them and towards an open tent full of processed samples, studying the collection dourly. A few stalactite-like growths of early rebar spikes, more soil samples…he stopped in front of a huge, translucent container nearly ten feet long, puzzling over it. It reminded him of a peapod, the inside hollow and lined with mats of a loose, vein-like mesh. It sat in an open crate, cushioned within a foam cradle and partially shrink wrapped: almost ready for transport to Pitcairn Island, he assumed.

He left the pod and was poking around the rest of the sample tent when the buzzing began again. He jolted in surprise as the noise swiftly rose to painful levels, hands clapping to his ears. He bolted from the tent and searched wildly for the source. The omnipresent tower of Yggdrasil was glowing brightly in its morning cycle of construction, and far and away he could sense the vibrations of the city’s edges expanding.

He realized people were staring at him in open confusion as he shuddered, the noise piercing through the weak protection of his hands and stabbing into his head. A guard touched his shoulder and spoke to him, his voice lost to the din – why in the hell wasn’t _anyone_ else reacting to the noise? He stared dumbly at the guard, shouting the question; there was a sharp, scraping squeal that he could feel shaking through his spine, and suddenly the noise stopped. He staggered back, taking gulping breaths and blinking as cold sweat dripped into his eyes.

“Sir,” the guard was saying again, bewildered. “Doctor, are you alright? Do you need an escort back?”

“What the hell _is_ that?” Newt asked loudly, barely able to hear himself speak. “How are you guys used to that noise?”

There was a deep sense of confusion and discomfort as the camp’s residents all stared at him, and the guard shook his head. “Sir…what are you talking about? No one heard anything.”

Newt stared at him and then back at the tower, the echoes of the electric whine still ringing in his ears. The murmuration of birds had returned, and Newt watched as they swarmed around the tower’s peak in a confused, convulsing black cloud.

             “You didn’t hear that,” he echoed. “The nails on a chalkboard times a hundred _screeching._ You’re telling me right to my face you didn’t hear it.”

            “Yes, sir,” the guard said. Newt wiped the sweat from his face and adjusted his glasses, looking at the researchers; they traded glances and mutters with each other and looked pointedly back to their work. “Do you need any help? I can assist you back to base.”

            “No,” Newt said sharply, pulling away from the guard and looking back at the tower again. “No. I’m fine. Sorry. I need a phone.”

            He was pointed towards a vidcall unit towards the back of the tent. His hand shook as he typed in the code, and almost at once the screen winked on.

            “Hermann,” Newt said. “Tell me you heard it.”

            “ _I did._ ” Gottlieb didn’t look even half as bad as Newt felt, but there was a deep, startled strain on his face. “ _Where are you?_ ”

            “City base camp. You coming?”

            “ _At once._ ”

            The screen went dark again and Newt stood, aware of attention fixed on him. He left the tent without a word, and in the early morning sun he watched as a newly formed wall rose by inches around the fields of rebar, the calls of frightened birds carrying over the wind.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

 

            “ _The concern I have isn’t what the signal’s instructing the tech to do, it’s where it’s coming from.”_ Lightcap sat back and frowned down at something down on her desk, her choppy vidcall feed freezing mid-frame before skipping back into play, briefly out of synch with her voice. The stream from Iceland was of barely better quality, the picture of Newt and Gottlieb huddled around their small computer jumping every few seconds.

            “Can you elaborate on that?” Herc asked, standing at deceptive ease with his hands clasped behind his back. Tendo could see how they clenched together as he spoke, knuckles gone white.

            “ _If the city was the originator of the signal we’d just have this one area to worry about,”_ Newt said, his voice fuzzed with static. “ _If Yggdrasil is a receiver rather than a broadcaster we could be looking at other development sites responding to construction commands. Hekla might not be an isolated case.”_

            “So it’s the rolling blackouts all over again. Interference we didn’t know to look for before it was too late. Every time this signal plays are we risking a Breach reopening?”

            “ _Too early to tell,_ ” Lightcap said. “ _And it’s made more difficult by the fact only Doctor Gottlieb and Doctor Geiszler can detect the signal, whatever it is.”_

            Tendo looked at Newt uncertainly; he seemed tired, his eyes bruised with dark circles and face pale. The last time Tendo had seen him look so drawn had been their month-long ordeal at Pitcairn Island and the breakout of the Second Wave; seeing him drop back into such a state again was alarming. Herc shared the sentiment, watching Newt and Gottlieb with open concern.

            “How’re you two holding up out there? Any…” he trailed off, gesturing at his head and unable to frame the question right. From a far corner of the room Lars cleared his throat and made as if to speak; Gottlieb squinted at the screen over his reading glasses and scowled faintly in response.

            “ _We’re fine,_ ” he said, tone cutting. “ _Nothing that a few aspirin can’t handle. We are both still perfectly sound of mind, Marshall.”_

            “Good to hear,” Herc said. He slanted a glance towards Lars and sighed, jerking his head. “Stop lurking. You asked to be included, so participate.”

            Gottlieb blustered in a burst of static, Newt elbowing him sharply to silence as Lars crept forward. His fingers drummed nervously against his ever-present clipboard, though he hadn’t been taking many notes since the conference call began.

            “Thank you, Marshall,” Lars said. “Doctor Lightcap, it seems rather implausible to believe that only two people are capable of… _sensing_ when these events occur. Surely there are methods more reliable than-”

            “ _Doctor Gottlieb, you don’t have the proper imagination for this type of problem._ ” Lars blinked, going slightly red in the face as Lightcap gave him a bland smile that only skirted polite. “ _We’re dealing with a highly irregular and unique situation. If Newt and Hermann say this is happening, I’m inclined to believe them. One must anticipate implausible things.”_

Lars took the rebuke silently, looking down at his clipboard and taking a few pointed notes. “Of course. Pardon my skepticism. But, again, surely there is a more efficient way to trace and pinpoint the origination of the signal.”

            “On that we agree,” Herc said. “I don’t want you two enduring this kind of stress again. I won’t ask you to act as human radio towers while we try to find the source. I can put in the order for recall immediately.”

            To Tendo’s surprise, Newt shook his head hard. “ _No. I have to stay, sir. They picked me for this because I’m the only one with solid xenotech experience. If there’s Precursor or kaiju activity at the root of this, I have to try and figure out how to stop it.”_

            “You’re anticipating kaiju?”

            “ _I’m looking at the worse-case scenario. This is a colony site, sir. The city’s self-constructing and maintains itself for Precursor occupants. Every time the signal kicks in it goes into building overdrive.”_ Newt took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. _“After the major construction ends, lull periods are for refining the framework. Walls are smoothed over, roads settle into place, wires grow and connect to power sources._ ”

            “ _They did this a thousand times over, if not more_ ,” Lightcap added. “ _We know they’re professional invaders. It’d be foolish to think they poured all their resources into establishing a single colony. There has to be more, maybe a base camp kept off the main path that could establish a strong presence before starting the colonization process in earnest.”_

“Why wait so long? It’s been almost a year post-Wave.”

            “Could be it was on a timer,” Tendo murmured, thinking aloud. “Or something happened at the base site and messed the schedule up.”

            Herc glanced over at him, then at the screens. “That very well could be. Fourteen confirmed Breaches opened in the Wave. Earth’s a big place with plenty of places to hide out dozens more.”

            “Anything could have slipped in undetected,” Lars said. He looked slightly grey in the face at the thought. “Using the major kaiju specimens as distractions and the breachlings to further divert our attention from the real threat.”

            Newt had sat back, the expression on his face unreadable. “ _They would have told me.”_

            “Ah yes, your _hive_ friends,” Lars said, tone dripping disapproval. “Perhaps they held back more from you than you anticipated, Doctor Geiszler.”

            “ _You don’t know anything about them,”_ Newt said, voice so cold it made Lars flinch. “ _Don’t presume. Not about this.”_

            “ _Is_ there a possibility they told you and it was overlooked, Newt?” Herc asked, cutting in. “Any kind of warning?”

            “ _No. I know I would remember it. They would've told me, sir._ ” Newt trailed off, looking distressed. Gottlieb put a hand on his shoulder and murmured something lost to static, though Newt seemed a little encouraged.

            “Newt,” Tendo said suddenly. “D’you think anybody stayed behind?”

            He blinked, mouth opening and closing several times before shaking his head. “ _No. The entire point was getting the hive back home to the Anteverse. They wouldn’t have stayed here, not even for me.”_

            “And beyond that, there would have been some sign of kaiju presence by now. Global patrols were established by every military able to spare the resources and people,” Herc said. “There would’ve been environmental signs at the very least.”

            “A Blue-leaking corpse, perhaps,” Lars said. “The creatures would have starved to death by now.”

            “ _Unless they’re eating breachlings,_ ” Gottlieb said dryly. “ _Wretched things breed like flies. That’s a plentiful food source.”_

Tendo was silent, remembering Mako tell him about the fierce battle against the category four kaiju Screel and Spindle in the Sonoran Desert. After their Jaeger had been destroyed she and Raleigh had been set upon by breachlings – and Spindle had defended them, _eating_ several of the smaller creatures. It was so glaringly, obviously _possible_ that the beasts served as food for their larger kin it shocked him no one had thought of it sooner. Tendo caught Newt’s eye, and both he and Lightcap stared back.

            “You think it’s possible?” Tendo asked.

            “ _I’ve learned not to rule anything out,”_ Lightcap said. “ _Newt?”_

He shook his head, still looking distressed at the idea. “ _I don’t know. I would’ve been able to tell if there was anyone here.”_

            “They cut your bond,” Tendo said. “You’re not part of them anymore.”

            “ _Phantom limbs,”_ Newt replied absently, staring downwards. “ _The bond’s gone but I still have the scars. I have memories that aren’t mine. Even they couldn’t scrub that away. I know I would’ve been able to tell.”_

 _“We both would have sensed it,_ ” Gottlieb said pointedly. “ _My own encounter with them was brief, but even a secondhand bond stemming from Newton to myself would be a useful indicator. I do not believe anyone stayed.”_

Lars made a soft sound like a stifled cough. Gottlieb glanced over at his father.

            “ _Yes?”_

“Your reports never mentioned your potential hive-links through Doctor Geiszler,” he said. “Is that why you’ve suddenly gained this sixth sense for radio signals? Some sort of alien interference with your brain?”

            “ _Haven’t the faintest idea,”_ Gottlieb replied coolly, looking back to Herc. “ _Newton and I can both confirm no kaiju have remained. The problem remains tracing and isolating the construction signal.”_

“Agreed,” Herc said. “You two keep up your investigation of the city. Doctor Lightcap, what’s your current schedule like?”

            _“AI installment, mostly. All the retrofitted Jaegers are in final testing but the new series are still waiting on their cores.”_

“I won’t run any risks telling you to shelve it,” Herc said. “Delegate what you can and get it done, quick as safety allows.”

            _“Understood, sir.”_

“Officer Choi,” he said. Tendo looked up and sat straighter at the grim expression on Herc’s face. “How many in LOCCENT are trained for Breach monitoring?”

            “Everyone, sir. Nobody working for me goes without knowing how to monitor.”

            “Good. Radio frequency monitoring is in the same ballpark. Set a team up and get them some space, I want them to start tracking irregularities. Newt, get me a timetable for the city’s construction times so we know when to start listening in.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “ _Right away.”_

Herc nodded to himself, glancing over at Lars as he waited expectantly. “Doctor Gottlieb…” He paused, searching for some kind of order to give. When he came up blank he just sighed. “Pass your report along to the UN.”

            Lars gave him a long, blank look. “Of course, Marshall.”

            The meeting ended on a distracted note, everyone already focused on their work. Herc left the conference room first and stopped short; he smiled in tired amusement. “Officer Choi, your next meeting’s starting.”

            “Meeting? I didn’t have a-”

Herc pointed to Liang as she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed. They nodded to each other civilly as he passed.

            “Oh,” Tendo said. Liang smiled slightly.

            “Yeah, _oh_. Had to push back a few meetings of my own waiting on you.”

            “Hopefully nothing too earthshaking. Hate to cut into your secret moon base construction.” Liang snorted as she fell into step beside him, taking his notepad and scanning the names. “I’m gonna assume you were eavesdropping?”

            “Hardly. These are solid steel doors. I can’t hear shit through them. Looks like you’re putting a specialist team together.”

            Tendo quickly explained as much of the meeting as he could. Liang was frowning in serious thought by the time they reached the elevator. The car jumped unpleasantly as it heaved itself upwards back towards LOCCENT, gears and pulleys grinding.

            “It _is_ another blackout situation,” she said. “I don’t like this. Other people picking up on it could be trouble.”

            “That’s the weirdest part, though. Only people apparently affected by it are Newt and Hermann. Otherwise it’s completely under the radar.”

            “That makes _absolutely_ no sense. They have kaiju superpowers?”

            Tendo shrugged. “Let’s be honest. That’s not the weirdest thing to come from all this alien invasion bullshit. You give me solid science for how the hivemind works and then we can start nitpicking about side-effects.”

            Liang snorted again, though lines of tension were still visible on her face. “Fair enough. How about the daring Jaeger duo? I didn’t see them.”

            “Who, Mako and Raleigh? They left yesterday for Oblivion Bay,” Tendo said. “Final collection trip for…I think Solar Prophet? I _think_ , I’m not sure. There weren’t too many rigs left that were in salvageable condition after the last trip. They’ve cleaned the place out.”

            The elevator juddered to a halt, the door opening with a rusty croak of effort. Liang gave Tendo a look as she stepped down; the car hadn’t quite met level with the lip of the floor.

            “Quality facility you’ve got here, Officer Choi.”

            “Hey. Nothing’s on fire, okay? Take your wins where you can.”

             “Hong Kong’s nicer.”

            “Yes, I know.” Tendo looked down at his list again, adding a few more names. “I liked it there. Better facility than Anchorage at any rate.”

            “And here I thought you’d be happy to be back in California.”

            “Los Angeles isn’t San Francisco. It’s not even the _ruins_ of San Francisco. The two don’t compare.”

            “Don’t be so sour,” she said; Tendo grinned as she play-punched his shoulder. “Beside, I’m here to brighten up your day whenever you like.”

            “Yeah, it’s a _blessing._ ”

            The door to LOCCENT was open, the day shift crew inside busy at work. Liang peeked in and watched the milling bee hive of technicians at their work stations, then at the large holo-screen projection of a global map.

            “What do you even watch for, these days?”

            “Anything. Everything. And I’m getting the nasty feeling we weren’t looking in the right places or far enough afield,” Tendo said. “At least the blackouts were noticeable. This signal doesn’t even have a warning when it starts.”

            “That might not be true,” Liang said. He glanced at her, frowning. “It's riding radio waves, right? Wouldn’t it be causing interference?”

            “Interference? What, like static? Ghost broadcasts overlaying other signals?”

            “I don’t know the technical terms for it, but if it’s as strong as Geiszler and Gottlieb are claiming…there has to be _something_ there.”

            Tendo sat down at his main console array, setting his notepad off to the side. Liang stood beside him looking at the holo-screen, idly tapping on icons for observation stations and pulling up their video feeds. The original Breach site was a cordoned exclusion zone now, surrounded by buoys capped with warning lights. The video feed was grey and drizzly today, the waters choppy with a passing storm.

            “It looks so normal. You wouldn’t think it’s a total dead zone there.”

            “Nuclear explosion and a couple thousand gallons of kaiju blood’ll do that,” Tendo said absently. Liang glanced over at him.

            “Something on your mind?”

            “Interference,” he said. “Static. There was this…I mean, this was back when Newt was sick from the messed up hive stuff, what Scunner did to him. A few days before we went to Pitcairn…something happened I could never figure out. He never explained it, either. I dunno if he even remembers it.” Liang sat on the edge of a console, curious. Tendo leaned back in his chair, fingers skipping absently over the rosary wrapped around his wrist. “He came to my room soaking wet in the middle of the night. Scared, like he’d seen a ghost or something. I went into his room the next day and everything was unplugged, tub was full to overflowing. He said he’d heard a noise and it had been keeping him awake.”

            “A noise?”

            “Yeah.”

            “And this noise…what? Drove him to almost drown himself?”

            “He wasn’t well,” Tendo said sharply. “There was a lot going wrong inside. I’m not saying the noise was _making_ him do anything, but even back then he could hear it. I’d bet good money Hermann could too.”

            “Pitcairn was months ago,” Liang said. “Almost a year. You’re thinking this has been going on for that long, and they just didn’t know what it was?”

            A cold lump settled in Tendo’s stomach, and he nodded slowly. “I do. Which means this isn’t a problem that started with the Second Wave. Something planted seeds here _much_ earlier.”

            “That doesn’t make sense. Nothing came out of the original Breach that you guys didn’t immediately see.”

            “The Precursors were here once before,” Tendo said. “Before anyone else ever was.”

            Liang blinked. “That’s a big reach, Tendo. Even by Corps-level ridiculous standards.”

            “I’m not saying they’re the ones that built Atlantis or anything, okay? But think about it. They come into our universe, find a planet they wanted before skipping back to their Nth dimension. Millennia later they want to move in. Breach opens up, nobody knows how. We close it, couple months later dozens more open and we _still_ don’t know how. Lightcap _said_ there could be a base camp somewhere out there. Some place we never discovered, just waiting. You think it's that much of a stretch?”

            “I don’t know,” she said. “But it does sound like you're looking for trouble that isn't there."

            “That’s an awfully polite way to call me paranoid.”

            She shrugged, looking back at the holo-screen. “I've been wrong plenty of times before. Ask the scientists about it.”

            “They’re mostly out of contact, Hekla’s a bad reception site because of the city.”

            “So of course their orders are to poke around inside it, _out of contact_.” Liang sighed. “It’s a wonder anything gets done around here.”

            “We manage just fine,” Tendo said dryly. “So. Listening to my conspiracy theories isn’t why you’re here, I assume. Did you need something?”

            “No, actually. I come bearing gifts.” She reached into an inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out a bundle of envelopes; Tendo noticed a logo from a Russian defense contractor he’d arranged meetings for several times, and slit the letter open. “…whoa.”

            Liang smiled at his shock as he read and reread the letter. “You’re welcome.”

            “How did you…’ _We are pleased to again offer our services to the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, as negotiated by your third-party mediator’-_ how. _How._ After the Kaidonovskys they wouldn’t even bother pretending interest.”

            “Chau knew a guy that knew a guy,” Liang said, shrugging. “They’re both _my_ contacts now, and they like working with me better.”

            “Hmn. What _does_ Mister Chau think of you usurping his throne?”

            “I wouldn’t know. He’s gone to ground somewhere, and I doubt he’ll be back,” she said. “After I rose up as protected competition he had limited options. Better to run than fight.”

            “Vicious work ethic you’ve got there,” Tendo said. Liang shrugged again, though she looked amused.

            “Enjoy your new armaments, Officer Choi. I’m sure you’ll put them to good use.”

            “Yeah, against phantom alien radio signals and elephant-sized lizard monsters.”

            She punched his arm again, a little harder and more pointedly. “Don't be sullen. Ask the scientists about the noise. I saw what the hive did to Doctor Gottlieb secondhand. I’d hate to see what a resurgence could do to them both.”

            “I will, I will…” Tendo turned and watched Liang leave, his attention briefly drawn away from his worries. When she disappeared out the door he blinked and shook himself, looking back at the holo-screen. He opened up the smaller version on his console and opened the choppy Hekla monitoring station feed; the city was a bronze-colored, hazy blob, the central tower stabbing upwards and seeming to rip at the sky with its barbed edges.

            _Buzzing,_ Newt had called the noise. _A really thin whine, like a high frequency._

_It was…keeping me awake._

            “You and me both, now,” Tendo muttered, closing out the screen and picking up his list. “One more goddamned thing to be afraid of.”


	14. Chapter 14

14.

 

            “You know there’s nothing down there but dead-end tunnels. Why bother?”

            “Because you won the coin toss and get to stay here.”

            Gottlieb leaned back in his uncomfortable camp chair, looking around the research camp’s main tent with a wry twist to his mouth. “I’m not sure I won, honestly. I didn’t think the satellite camp would be so…”

            “Dull?”

            “Yes.”

            Newt finished packing a notebook and several pens into his bag and slung it over his shoulder, taking the walkie talkie Gottlieb held out to him as he passed by. “I don’t see why I should take this, though.”

            “Because you promised me you’d stay in contact.”

            “In an area that deadens radio? I might as well be using Morse code.”

            “Indeed. And if you fall down a pit of spikes just send an SOS with the static.” Newt’s withering look was wasted on Gottlieb, who was already looking over the paper maps and computerized imaging of the city districts they had been exploring the past week. Herc’s order to research and learn as much about the city as they could had been a strange mix of disappointingly bland and uncomfortable, trying to time their visits in-between the construction cycle startups. This meant rushing to get in as much research as they could in the field – but the field, it seemed, had next to nothing interesting to offer.

            Newt checked his watch against the computer’s countdown to the evening cycle, setting the alarm. “Eight hours of wandering around empty rooms. Awesome.”

            “Be grateful they’re empty,” Gottlieb said dryly. “You really want to run into a Precursor hatchery? Great big halls full of evil alien roaches?”

            “They reminded me more of stick bugs than roaches.” Newt adjusted the bag’s strap and clipped the walkie to it, biting back a sigh as he bent down over the map one last time. “Alright, I’ll be on level six, two down below.”

            “Be back-”

            “At least an hour ahead of time, I know.”

            “And be careful.”

            “I will, I will.”

            “And don’t talk to strangers.”

            Newt snorted, sharing Gottlieb’s tired grin. “Yes, _mom._ Have fun with your computer shit.”

            “Always do. Off with you.” Newt left the tent and disappeared down a large, winding corridor that lead from the vast, empty room dubbed a ‘foyer’; every district had a foyer and multiple corridors that snaked through the city, connecting the multiple levels like a crazed spider’s web. If there was any sense to the countless chambers and galleries of the city’s construction Gottlieb certainly couldn’t see it; a person could get easily lost for days at a time. Early Corps scouts _had_ gotten lost, their radios and compasses useless the deeper into the complex they wandered. Their reports spoke of empty rooms, halls like ribcages that stretched for miles, spinal column pillars stretching upwards into shadows too dark to penetrate.

            It all left a bad taste in Gottlieb’s mouth. Newt was not alone in his bitter mutterings, wishing the place had been razed before it could grow, tumor-like, into the volcano and root itself in so immovably. He leaned back in his chair and looked across the foyer. Yggdrasil’s trunk took up hundreds of yards of space, but the room was still immense enough to dwarf the tower’s presence by sheer volume of emptiness. The construction cycles didn’t just spread the city, it grew the tower of Yggdrasil more each day. Gottlieb wondered how far it would go. Maybe it would grow taller and taller until its tip could pierce the atmosphere, blooming satellite dishes like flowers turning their faces towards the sun.

            Now _that_ was a hideous thought.

            He shook his head and turned his attention back to the maps, scribbling half-hearted notes for a report going to…someone. Maybe Herc, maybe Safirsdottir. Hell, for all he knew the things just served as coasters or to prop up wobbly tables at this point. There was only so many ways of saying _‘we’re still trying to find something to learn here, sorry’_ before the language got repetitive. Gottlieb pored over the scout mission summaries, rifling through photos and draft sketches of districts two through four. Two and three had been thoroughly explored, and four – where the camp currently sat – was mapped to current completion. There were handwritten notes marking a series of chambers across the foyer Gottlieb hadn’t noticed before; he adjusted his reading glasses, frowning.

            Each chamber bore the name ‘ _server farm’._ Gottlieb smoothed the map down under the light of a portable electric lantern, the stark light making the bold black lines jump out on the crinkled yellow paper. Server Farms 1 to 8 were marked ‘open’; additional rooms seemed to be under construction with the ongoing cycles, perhaps waiting for districts not yet built. No other districts seemed to contain server farms, Gottlieb noted as he skimmed the other maps. Only this one.

            He sat quiet for a moment and then shrugged, pushing away from the desk. He was in the field, and the field seemed to contain something he was familiar with. Better to do something constructive with his time than sit waiting for Newt to come back. He grabbed the map and followed path markers to the room block, heading down a tunnel that seemed chewed into the chitin rather than built.

As he walked, Gottlieb tried to imagine _anything_ living comfortably in this place. Perhaps it was just his human sensibilities being offended but the way the ribbed walls bent down around a person, how sound was so deadened the only things you could hear was your own breathing, the disjointed _wrongness_ of how light hit and bounced off the chitinous walls…they may have been a superior species, but the Precursors’ taste in architecture left much to be desired.

Gottlieb looked over his shoulder at the diminishing tunnel entrance, wondering what he would do if a hidden trap door were to slam shut behind him. His imagination wasn’t creative with disaster scenarios, but the nagging thought that the tunnel would seal into an inescapable vacuum pestered him all the way through to the server chambers. The fact that there were air ducts with heavy, spiky grates every few feet did nothing to assuage him, and he felt mixed relief to come to the tunnel’s end.

            He wasn’t sure what he’d expected when he entered the first of the server farms, but he wasn’t impressed by what he found. There were several rings of lean, boxy structures that grew seamlessly up from the floor to waist-height, honeycombed with lights to indicate hidden interior machinery. The server towers were cool to the touch and vibrated gently; Gottlieb could see no wiring or obvious mechanical parts and couldn’t begin to guess their function. He looked up and noted that the room rose to a conical peak, ribs stretching into inky shadows.

            The rings surrounded a raised dais with steps Gottlieb had to climb more like a ladder than proper stairs, built for a lanky Precursor’s strides. His leg was stiff and promised a night of bone-deep aching by the time he cleared the stairs to the top. The dais was the same chitin-metal material as the rest of the city’s construction, but had been polished to a dull brass shine. Concentric rings were carved into the material, cut into four quarters by lines of matte black. Gottlieb stepped over the lines cautiously to stand in the centermost circle.

            Several seconds went by with no reaction. Gottlieb sighed with quiet but unsurprised disappointment and turned to begin the arduous climb down when he felt a tickle of static electricity. It wasn’t unpleasant, more like a feathery soft brush against his skin that briefly made his hair stand on end; Gottlieb turned back to the dais and found the matte lines had brightened to silvery white, illuminating particles of dust flowing upwards. After a moment watching the dust motes Gottlieb realized they were flowing up only to certain levels, then hanging stationary. Shapes were beginning to take form in layers, lines and loops creating an image out of dust mote pixels.

            Gottlieb stepped very carefully back into the center of the dais, letting the dust-pixel construction build around him. None of the scout reports had mentioned _anything_ like this, but then again, they were dated by several months; perhaps there was nothing reported because the tech itself had still been in the building phase, dormant and of no interest. He had no idea how he’d even turned it on, but as Gottlieb stood and the construct formed around him he felt… _excited._ Here was a piece of xenotechnology no human had ever encountered before, and he’d made it _work._

            The soft rolls of static electricity fell quiescent as the image completed itself. Standing in the middle of it Gottlieb couldn’t tell for sure what it was; its shape was tiered with a complex, root-like system stabbing downwards, ringed with spokes that spread out from several middle tiers. Gottlieb raised a hand and gave an experimental push. The dust-pixel image turned with his gesture, and his excitement doubled. Gottlieb felt a grin spread over his face as he gestured the image to magnify and minimize, manipulating it as easy as a holo computer’s haptic screens. It felt solid beneath his fingertips, the dust warm to the touch.

            So delighted with his discovery, Gottlieb didn’t realize the image was a map of the city until several minutes later. The understanding of it came slowly, the silhouette of the city only familiar from the surface towers and Yggdrasil’s central pillar. His happy excitement faded as Gottlieb took in the full scale of the Precursor construction, a creeping sense of cold dread replacing it. The city was already enormous, but _this…_ this image showed a city built to completion, its veiny roots spreading downwards, ever downwards….and the spokes, spreading _out._

            Gottlieb tapped on one of the spokes. It blurred, the dust coming apart to reform into a new, orange-tinted image; it looked like a service tunnel, the main hatch closed down. Several scrolling bars of jagged, termite track-like lines loaded; a progress report, he guessed. The Precursors’ written language had an elegance nothing else of their creation seemed to possess, and Gottlieb watched the message scroll through and refresh several times, wondering what it said.

 “I liked all this so much better when it was only alien reptiles to be afraid of,” he murmured, closing out the message window and tapping at the image’s projected hatch door. It opened and closed with each tap, eventually fixing in place and the orange tint turning a soft yellow. “At least the kaiju made sense after a while. ‘Oh, is there a mutant iguana knocking down skyscrapers? Let’s build a giant robot in answer and double the property damage’! But now? No, no. Nothing so bloody simple. Now it’s an invasive species of architecture.”

He closed out the image and returned to the main city projection. All the access tunnel spokes had turned from orange to soft, sunny yellow, and to his surprise other colors had begun to bloom over the silvery projection. Gottlieb’s attentions were drawn away from the tunnels, and he paid no heed to the second screen that manifested itself, line after line of Precursor words coursing in automated report.

 

* * *

 

 

 It was the scent of saltwater that caught Newt’s attention.

He had been wandering through a curving hallway lined with heavy hatch doors, mind more focused on what kind of filler report he would be writing that night than really paying mind to where he was going. The hallway was no different than the layout in the upper city districts. Some lead to other identical hallways or empty rooms and galleries, while others opened up into shallow depressions of half-converted soil and rock. Newt had sat down a previous afternoon and watched with unease as a room carved itself out over the course of an hour, even cleaning up the dust afterwards.

            The room had been empty and entirely unremarkable, but Newt had found he couldn’t muster the bravery to step inside it.

            Here and now, though. First it had been the soft _whoosh_ of the hatches, first at random and then in tandem, irising back and forth until all stood wide open and…not welcoming, no. More expectant like waiting mouths, the dim coppery light of the tunnels beyond trying to entice explorers into what _had_ to be a trap.

            When the hatches had first decided to activate Newt had almost turned and walked back upstairs – or, well, let’s be honest, briskly sprinted for his life – but when nothing horrible came pouring out of the tunnels his curiosity began to pull at him. He stopped in front of one tunnel and felt a hot, desiccated breeze over his face, prompting a hasty step back. With his luck he’d wander into this one and fall into Hekla’s magma chamber. He moved onto the next; against the chitin walls echoed an irregular, faintly musical _plip plip plink!_ of water dripping on metal. Tempting, but no. Better not to walk inside, slip on a puddle and crack his head open. Another gave forth a noise like a thunderstorm, the weird refracted light split between copper and brief flashes of stark electrical blue.

            “Well,” Newt said, almost cheerful as he took down notes, marking the numbers painted on each hatch’s frame. “This is fucking weird.”

            Maybe the city wasn’t a city after all. Maybe it was a weather station with contained environments, running tests for ideal colonization. Maybe if somebody pushed the wrong button or pulled the wrong lever it would activate and transform Hekla into a supervolcano, belching ash and lava until it smothered the entire island. Newt paused at this thought and then quietly scribbled a note to ask signs be made saying _Do Not Touch Anything: Global Destruction May Occur._

He was halfway through the corridor and had marked the varied weirdness of twelve tunnels when the smell of saltwater hit him in the face like a slap. He stopped at the mouth of the tunnel and blinked as the cold draft breathed over him; it felt damp _,_ and he took his glasses off to stare, baffled, at the fine sheen of condensation. They were miles inland. This salt spray had no business _being_ here. He shoved his glasses back on and stowed his notebook away, wishing he’d thought to bring a flashlight as he walked into the tunnel. He looked down at the walkie still clipped to his bag’s strap and wavered, then pushed on. He’d only be a minute looking. No reason to bother with the walkie anyway, it picked up and broadcast only static.

            The saltwater smell was strong to begin with, and Newt wrinkled his nose as the strong odor of decaying seaweed began to lace through the brine. He was maybe five minutes in when he noticed the first straggling strands of kelp. They littered the floor, sitting in mostly dried up puddles and caked with sand and salt. Newt stared very, very hard at the kelp, possibly more than a few strands of dead seaweed really deserved. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes, put them back on and looked back down. Nope, still there. Still kelp.

            The nagging thought that he should turn around was insistent, but could barely make itself heard over the more frustrated and confused _This shouldn’t be here_ that kept running through Newt’s mind. He walked past it and found more, the cloying odor of it overpowering the saltwater. And there was saltwater on the floor, Newt realized. Tepid, drying puddles at first, but the trickle of water was audible now and echoing through the tunnel. The glimmer of light on water caught his eye on the walls and Newt slowed without stopping, watching as little rivulets of water flowed not down, but sideways. It crisscrossed in runnels over the chitin walls, and the chitin was becoming harder to see underneath the _fucking seaweed growing on the walls-_

            “What. _What.”_ Newt’s voice was muffled by the insulation of seaweed and – he pushed back a thatch of thick brown-green plant matter, and holy shit there were _barnacles,_ there were barnacles on the wall and they were miles inland. “No.”

            The seaweed and barnacles ignored his insistent if single word argument. The plants remained as they were plastered half dried and pungent with decay, the barnacles fused firmly onto the chitin. The tunnel was being turned into a sea cave.

            “I should turn around,” Newt muttered, going firmly forward. “I should turn right the fuck around _right_ now, get Hermann and get a plane home. I am too old and too tired for this metaphysics bullshittery.”

            The draft was much colder this far into the tunnel and heavy with condensation. Newt wiped off his face and felt it weighing down in his hair, mist dampening his clothes. He zipped up his hoodie and wished for a jacket, shivering only mostly from the cold. He wanted to turn around. He _wanted_ to. But the exit of the tunnel was straight ahead, standing open and waiting. Newt slogged through the thick build-up of seaweed and sand, wincing as he heard barnacles and broken bits of shells crunching under his boots. He stopped at the tunnel mouth and looked out.

            Or rather, he looked up _._ The tunnel opened to a grey sky far above, framed with the jagged, broken ribs of walls and a snapped spinal column pillar. Newt took a step forward and stumbled upright, sliding over water as it poured in little rivulets into the ruined tunnel. He turned around in a bewildered circle; up and down seemed firmly in place, but he had thought he was walking straight, not _up_ , in the tunnel itself. There had been no shift of gravity, no indication he’d been walking vertically. Or maybe physics was voluntary in the tunnel?

            “No. Nope. Don’t think about it. Don’t give yourself a migraine.” The tunnel had let him into a corridor that would have been identical to the one he’d left, if it had been in one piece. The place was in shambles, torn apart and left open to the sky.  Newt watched through a gaping hole in the ceiling as water splashed in every few seconds in guttering waterfalls; he spotted a large fish fall with the water, flailing and gaping, and disappear out of sight.

            “What the fuck,” Newt said calmly. So calmly in fact it almost worried him, but there was no edge of hysteria behind the calm. He’d just seen a goddamned fish go flailing through the air after walking through a sea cave tunnel, where _none_ of these goddamned things had any right to _be._ He waited, carefully weighing his own reactions. And all he felt, with utmost certainty, was curious.

            Newt marked the entryway to the Hekla tunnel with a page torn from his notebook, considered trying the walkie talkie. After a moment he unclipped it and stowed it away. Shoulders set, heart steady, he walked from the corridor into a sunken, ruined city.

           

             

           

 

 

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a long, LONG lapse in updates for Hosanna. Life has its way of getting into a muddle and upsetting priorities, but hopefully things are settled enough now that I can start updating again on my old semi-regular basis. Sorry for the delay, and if you've stuck around this long waiting for an update, thank you, and I hope you like it. <3


	15. Chapter 15

15.

 

 

            What struck Newt as the most unusual was the noise. The city in Iceland was silent as a grave, all the machinery of its inner workings soundless and smooth. Sound was deadened, footsteps and breathing smothered. As he walked through the ruined corridor Newt could feel the vibrations of unseen waves throwing themselves against chitin and shaking the corridor. For all that the ruins were a destroyed version of the Hekla site it felt better, more alive and _real_ ; the Precursors’ coda of perfection was lost here, and the ruins were more beautiful than a whole structure could ever hope to be. He took a deep breath and the cold air felt clean.

            Gottlieb was going to kill him for wandering off like this. Newt could too easily picture the look of disgust, hear the admonishing tone of the argument to come. And he had earned it, he admitted it. It _had_ been stupid to go poking around alone. That being acknowledged…Newt passed into a hall supported by ribcage-like columns, admiring the streamers of seaweed that hung low and softened the hard curves. The plants were alive, still damp from the receded tide. They also hung some ten feet in the air; when the water came back - _if_ it came back – the hall would be impassible. Newt wondered when the water had drained away and where it had gone. It would be a good idea to only do some quick looking around before heading back…he had no desire to try and outrun a flash flood of returning tides.

            Shells and sand crackled under his boots as he explored the hall. Newt bent down and picked up a mussel shell. He studied it curiously; it was a common mussel, the shell striped black and blue bright with mother-of-pearl inside. Newt walked on, turning the shell over in his hands and following the soft push of a breeze flowing out of the hall. Several corridors were blocked with debris and half-buried in sand. He passed them by, the breeze tugging him along; he stopped at every turn and junction in the path and marked his progress with more ripped paper from his notebook. An imperfect trail but at least better than breadcrumbs.

            Physics seemed to be behaving as he left the hallway for a new tunnel. He had thought he was walking horizontally and it had stayed so, no surprise backwards flowing water or dramatic shifts in gravity to disorient him. Maybe the tunnel he had taken into the ruin behaved so strangely because of its damage – maybe it was like a wormhole, two points connected over distance that was supposed to be undetectable. With the tunnel’s slow transformation into a sea cave its mechanics were disrupted, the wormhole’s seamless connection fraying at the edges.

The breeze stopped abruptly at a wide, winding staircase that spiraled down into murky grey light. Newt sat on the topmost stair and threw the mussel shell on impulse. It clattered down the chitin steps and lay face up, resting on the third to last stair. The soft noise of its trip down hadn’t attracted any attention from what he could tell, no trick steps rigged with spikes or flamethrowers triggered. Newt looked at the thin rail that sprouted on the outer edge of the staircase and gave serious thought to sliding down it; common sense won out and he stood, brushing sand off his jeans as he slowly climbed down. The lights fixed into the staircase’s support pillar brightened as he passed, a line of milky-white orbs like bulging blind eyes shining one by one, only to dim again as he passed. Newt held onto the rail but his grip was light; even after determining the chitin was inert and harmless after final construction he still found himself loath to touch it with his bare hands.

He stopped and picked the mussel shell up again and put it in his pocket, jumping the last few steps and landing on a floor thickly covered with sand. His boots left deep impressions that filled with a thin skin of cloudy water, the ever-present smell of brine stronger here as his breath rose in clouds. Water beaded the walls and trickled through cracks in the chitin; more than once Newt passed puddles sticking flat to the walls, fed by little rivulets and stubbornly ignoring gravity. Newt picked up a pebble and tossed it at the wall; it bounced a few times and stayed there as though stuck, but came free without resistance when he picked it up again.

“Ah. Well…okay,” he said. He tossed the pebble into a little pool and the rings rippled over the wall, smoothing over again in a second or so. “This hallway alone could fuel research for years. What the _hell_.”

Years was a generous understatement, he mused. More like _decades._ Decades of research and experimentation, trying to understand this strange broken place. Newt left the hanging puddles behind and followed the hall’s sinuous curves, arms wrapped around himself for warmth as it opened into a vast space. It was unfinished, the walls left rough and the floor more like porous basalt than chitin. Newt wandered through it, grinning a little to finally hear the rolling waves that made the place shake. The cool air was thick with humidity, the weight of it settling in his hair and clothes. The indirect light was silvery-grey rather than copper, throwing soft shadows. Of all the ruin Newt had seen this place felt the most natural; the construction forever stilled and leaving a cavern behind, stalactites and stalagmites pushing out from the chitin like teeth in a massive jaw.

Water dripped from the ceiling into shallow pools in the floor, ripples highlighted with the ashen light. Newt stepped over them with care, trying not to disturb anything. Little glimmers of light caught his eye as the pools rippled unceasing. There was a peace to this place he hadn’t expected, the white noise of waves, the sighing winds punctuated with faint, musical drips of water. In the middle of the ruin was a sanctuary of nature overtaking what had tried to twist and corrupt it.

He stopped just shy of a truly enormous stalactite hanging low from the ceiling, watching water pour like unbroken threads of glass into the deep pool below. The flow was smooth from ceiling to pool, the light reflecting gently. He sat on a jutting outcrop of chitin and studied the play of light and water, the silver patterns mesmerizing in their ceaseless slow movement. After a few moments he blinked, squinting at the pool. The sourceless, indirect light was typical of Precursor structures if not really goddamned weird, but the light glimmering on the water here was off – there were motes of color, a sheen of blue so faint as to be unnoticeable. He stared hard at the water, unsure what he was looking for but certain it was there, scanning the pool for – there. _There_ is was. He slid off the outcropping and right into the pool; it went halfway up to his knees but he paid no mind, leaning forward so close his nose almost touched the water, breath making the surface ripple. He cursed himself for forgetting safety gloves, trying to think how he could remove samples if he could remove the glowing object when it suddenly unfurled.

Whether the warmth of his body in the water or his unthinking steps had alerted it, Newt couldn’t say. He watched, dumbstruck, as a fleshy bloom of tendrils and bright glowing nodes unwound itself and rose up from the water, gently breaking the surface. He swung upright again and almost flung himself backwards into the water, staring as the bloom, so very like Otachi’s tongue, swept around as though scenting him out.

“Shit. Holy shit. _Holy_ -” Newt’s voice dwindled as the bloom’s tendrils flexed and the ‘head’ swung towards him; maybe detecting the sound of his voice or exhalations of carbon dioxide, maybe feeling the minute vibrations of his pounding heart through the water. He waited in an agony of indecision, knowing he should climb out of the pool at once but unable to move. The bloom waved to and fro as though bending with some unfelt breeze, the tendrils swaying in the air.

Minutes ticked by and the bloom did nothing else; Newt’s shock-numbed body prickled to life again, and he knelt down slowly in the water. The bloom’s ‘head’ turned to him again; he reached out and held his hand just above it, studying it as the bloom’s tendrils stretched and followed his hand wherever he put it. Sensitive to heat or disturbances in air currents, maybe…he peered in the water and saw strong, thick roots secured the bloom into the chitin. An alien flower growing from harsh, unwelcoming substrate.

The silver light of the cavern was changing. Newt looked up and saw in every pool that blooms were uncurling and sprouting from the water, giving off ghostly blue glow. He saw interconnected systems of the roots through cracks and holes in the floor, tying the blooms together; he couldn’t be sure without taking samples and removing sections of the floor to check, but it seemed the blooms were less individuals part of a network as they were one organism, giving off multiple sprouts. What _was_ it? An organic sensor array? A security system gone wild? What could it do? Or was it meant to do anything at all?  Newt couldn’t picture Precursors keeping a garden for pleasure’s sake, admiring fields of Otachi-tongue flowers swaying and glowing in the afternoon sun.

He realized he was shivering and finally climbed out of the pool, sitting on his outcropping again. The cavern was full of soft rustling sounds over the water now, the garden stirred awake and ceaselessly moving. He left the outcropping and followed the thin paths of chitin around the pools, heading towards the furthermost end of the cavern; he stopped short as he almost walked over a broken edge, the floor broken and sloping down into the tier below. It was a steep but safe angle to climb down, the rough floor offering plenty of hand- and footholds. The bloom organism had pushed a few sprouts into the floor here before it had broken; cut off from their originator they had begun to grow on their own, roots and blooms climbing down like ivy vines, water spilling over them from the pools above. Newt bit at his lip again and slowly reached out to the nearest bloom; it woke to his presence, and soon they were all glowing to light his way down.

He adjusted his bag more securely over his shoulder and began to climb down. The chitin bit into his hands and he winced at the little nicks and cuts; there had been no telltale reek of Kaiju Blue in the water and from what he could tell the ruin was truly dead, so there was _probably_ no risk of contamination...but, he swore to himself, from now on heavy-duty gloves were always coming with him. Hekla wasn’t the only city site; whatever had destroyed this place had stopped it from spreading to completion, but confirming there was more than one Precursor city meant a lot of exploration like this in his future, and dammit he’d have decent gear while he did it.

The slope swept up into a strange curl at the bottom, forcing Newt to climb over it and drop six feet below. He was surprised to find the water he landed in warm, his breath no longer clouding. The light of the blooms didn’t reach very far into this new space; Newt dug into his bag and pulled out a small flashlight swinging the thin, bright beam around. His landing had disturbed the water badly and his movements sent echoes bouncing off unseen walls; as Newt walked, a ripple of light and slithery movement straight ahead caught his attention.

He went still, clicking the little flashlight off and stared at a large growth; it was crisscrossed with thick yellow veins, the skin beneath mottled green. It grew, fungus-like, in tiers that climbed from the floor, up the wall and upwards out of sight to the ceiling. The veins weren’t fully attached to the fruiting bodies; Newt took a wide step back as several pulled away from the fungus and wall, glowing wet fingers that glowed bright yellow and reached for him. He clicked the light back on and the fingers curled away from him, settling back onto their fungi. The wet rustling made him uneasy as Newt walked through the overgrown tunnel, only the light of his flashlight keeping those grasping fingers from wrapping around his arms or touching his face. He found another small tunnel off to the side and ducked inside.

The tunnel was short and stopped abruptly, opening into a room that looked ripped apart – Newt tripped over a pile of hexagonal tiles that had been pushed out of the walls by thick roots, the glow of them overpowering his flashlight. He clicked it off again and the roots brightened in response, little puffs of cottony-white material glimmering in-between forks and angles of the roots. The room seemed lit by them, a swarm of will-o’-the-wisps that framed a huge, reflective black wall on one side. Newt thought he was looking at a mirror of polished obsidian, his disheveled and wet reflection looking back at him in surprise.  He reached out and his fingers broke a surface of icy cold water.

The rings spread and the light of a thousand blooms and wisps blinded him in a startling flash. He blinked hard and rubbed at his eyes, cursing under his breath. The spots lingered as he squinted through the pane of water into an alien world, or as close to one as Earth could boast. Bony, strange deep-sea fish swam without concern through the bright growths of blooms, blue tendrils and white puffballs swaying with the current. Newt’s mouth hung open as a viperfish swam past the pane of water, sparing him an uninterested glance before darting through a stand of blooms and out of sight. It was healthy- all the fish and crustaceans he could see were _healthy_ , no sign of open sores or weals that were so common on animals poisoned with Blue. Looking at the growth Newt felt a shudder of dread. A thriving garden of invasive alien plants, hidden perfectly from human detection. Who knew how long it had taken to grow or what it would do to the ecosystems it was invading?

At least the plants - if they _were_ plants – seemed non-poisonous. The animals in the little garden seemed alright for now; if Newt could find examples of multiple environments, maybe compare and study biome effects with an isolated control group…he mulled on thoughts of field research as he left the strange room, the flashlight clicked on again and warding off fungus-veins. He left the overgrown tunnel and headed back to the foot of the slope. He very badly wanted to keep exploring but knew he had to get back to the Hekla base immediately. He had to tell the Marshall what he’d found and start working on a way to curb the spread of the growths before it got worse. He stared up the slope and then glanced around in the waiting gloaming. Responsibility pulled at his conscience, but…he hadn't been gone from Hekla more than an hour. He wouldn’t be missed yet.

One more room. One more, then _right_ back to base. His conscience was satisfied with the compromise, sort of….if he didn’t think to hard about it, anyway. Curiosity took the reins were responsibility fell away and he waded down the hall. It opened into another chamber almost as large as the cavern above, the glow of bloom and other growths lighting his path. The ever-present noise of waves was louder here, thick drifts of mist falling over him. He shone the flashlight up and nearly dropped it; huge waves were rolling on the ceiling, endless and inexplicable. He gaped as the whitecaps curled and crashed, wiping the mist they threw off his face.

“What is _with_ this place?”

His question echoed unanswered. He lowered the light and shook his head hard, pushing away the urge to stand and stare. Gottlieb would love and hate this place; trying to figure out how it worked would be a frustrating, wonderful challenge. Newt waded on and winced as the water lost its warmth, growing colder and colder with each step. His boots crunched on strange material, varying from thick to brittle to mushy-soft, the water clouded over and strange-smelling. He paused, the unpleasant odor reminding him of the sickly sweet of organic rot. There was little growth deeper in the new cavern; maybe the plants had died, unable to grow in the weird substrate? He walked forward a little and his boot hit something half-hard, half-yielding; it rolled in the shallow water and Newt froze as the remains of a broken ribcage gleamed in the beam of his flashlight.

Flesh still clung to the bones. Newt’s initial shock faded and he turned the ribcage over again with the toe of his boot. Despite its submersion the meat wasn’t giving off a rank odor, nor was there any sign of decay; this was the fresh remains of a meal. What the animal was he couldn’t say for sure. The ribcage was wide and slightly flattened, the bones a strange greenish-grey. A short length of spine hung limp on the ribcage and Newt noted the evidence of a violent struggle before the thing’s back was broken. His fingers hovered over the bones, wondering…there was a set of evenly-spaced gouges in the thick cable of vertebrae, and one had, to his surprise, a tooth still lodged deep inside. He pulled the tooth free with a sharp _pop_ , studying it under the flashlight beam. It was a long, jagged thing, little strings of blue flesh and nerve still clinging where it had been ripped free of the creature’s mouth.

Newt went cold and his mouth dried out, horrible realization dawning. He dropped the tooth into the water and backtracked away from the ribcage, his steps crunching and sliding over what could only be more remains left to decay in the water. He had walked, stupid and careless, into the middle of a predator’s den.

“Fuck,” he said. “Oh, fuck.”

The wave-punctuated strangeness of the cave felt like a trap now, a lure for stupid, curious prey to lower their defenses. He shone the light across the corpse-filled water to find his path, fear making his heart jolt at every sharp slosh and drip of water, certain his footsteps were echoing far too loudly. The broken material he had taken for crushed-up stone threw familiar shapes in the water now – the grinning beak of a dolphin, the bulky ribs of a sea lion. Mixed into the species he knew were more of the green-grey bones he couldn’t identify, all of them stripped of meat and the bones broken open for marrow.

He wanted to run. Everything in him screamed _run._ Newt held himself in check, steps slow and calm even as his heartbeat seemed to judder with every breath. He was going to quietly backtrack to the slope, climb up into the cave, and go home and barricade the door behind him, and never, _ever_ do something as fuckheaded irresponsible as this ever again, he _promised._

Acidic green light glowed on the water, far different from the glow of the sparse growths. Newt clicked off the flashlight and the green glow seemed to brighten in response, moving towards him. There was nothing under the water that was giving off light; Newt slipped the flashlight into his pocket and lifted his gaze to the ceiling.

A breachling with vivid green stripes floated in the water above him, its slick, crocodilian head just above the surface. Waves broke around it and sent splatters of water downwards as it emerged inch by inch. Its eyes were black and flat as a shark’s, the teeth sprouting from its heavy-muscled jaws a handspan long. A few were missing and some were in the process of growing back in, even longer and sharper than the originals.  Newt’s vision tunneled; all there was in the world was him and the breachling, predator and prey each taking the other’s measure. A few seconds as long as a lifetime passed between them, the only noise the sound of Newt’s panicked breathing and the rhythmic, endless cycling of the waves. The breachling twisted its head to one side, and along its skull three more cold onyx-disc eyes opened as it stared him down.

Newt blinked, and the breachling pushed free of the water.

The urge to run took over. The escape from the cave was a blur of terror and water, the ground-shaking _THUD_ of the breachling’s body as it landed spurring him into a sprint. The creature loped behind him with loud splashes, claws striking against chitin. Newt didn’t dare look back, panic propelling him forward. He ran back to the upturned curl of the slope and badly scraped his hands trying to climb up again; his grip slipped and he fell back hard, unable to keep hold.

The breachling was behind him and pushing its slightly too-large body through the corridor. It was all wiry muscle, brute strength in every movement. It had four forelimbs just like its larger kaiju cousins, though Newt saw one of them was scarred from a past mangling; something had tried to bite it off. He remembered the grey-green bones in its den and wondered if they were the bones of its nestmates, cannibalized and left to rot in the stagnant water.

The breachling heaved itself through the tunnel a few feet at a time, the tip of its long snout poking out and its flat eyes fixed on Newt balefully. He bolted, abandoning his original path down; he couldn’t scale the curl again and he had no time to keep trying. He would just have to find an alternate route back up and pray the breachling didn’t follow. The tunnel home was far too small for it. He could escape and the creature would be trapped on this side-

A thick patch of blooms tangled his feet and Newt pitched forward, landing hard on his hands and knees. He fought free of the tangle and cursed as the breachling swung its head toward him, jaws swinging open to reveal a curling, three-pronged tongue. It wrenched forward and freed itself from the tunel, blood from the long scrapes in its flanks darkening the lurid green stripes. Newt rolled to his feet and bolted into the next corridor he could find, skidding over the uneven floor. The corridor sloped down sharply and Newt soon realized it was flooded, the water rising to his knees, then his waist. The breachling was trying once more to force its way through to follow him; the porous chitin was twisting under the pressure, the walls giving way.

Newt waded forward until he was swimming, taking little notice of the water’s warmth or how bright new growths glowed beneath him. The breachling shrieked in thwarted rage as he escaped it; it was caught in the corridor and could only watch as he clumsily paddled away. The corridor opened into a room split by an enormous fallen pillar coated with growth. Newt heaved himself up onto it, spitting out water and trying to catch his breath. By some miracle his glasses were still on his face. He adjusted them, squinting through water-spattered lenses down the flooded corridor. The breachling’s snarls echoed, the volume growing as it drew closer.

He jumped to his feet and nearly slid off the pillar. If he kept running blind he would get so lost he would never escape, not even if he managed to shake the breachling off his trail – and if he didn’t run into any others. This section of the ruin was likely the breachling’s territory, won by killing its rivals and anything that dared creep in too close. If he had to guess Newt thought the beast was a juvenile, based on its size; a juvenile thankfully too young to be breeding yet. No mates would be lurking around in its territory, no vicious little hatchlings chasing after prey that escaped its parents. It was the thinnest silver lining Newt could think of, but at least here he only had _one_ monster to flee from, not a pack.

He looked up and saw the pillar had crashed down from the upper level, punching a huge hole through the ceiling in the process. He dared a glance back at the tunnel – green light glimmered on the water as it approached, already halfway through the tunnel, its eyes deep-set black holes in its leering face. Newt turned and began to climb. The incline was gentle enough to climb, but it went dizzyingly high. Newt made the mistake of looking down to check the breachling’s progress and vertigo threatened to tip him forward; he squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for breath, only climbing again as the breachling won free of the tunnel and gave a loud, cackling shriek.

Newt climbed to the top of the pillar quickly, pulling himself through the ragged edge of the hole and rolling across the floor. He climbed to his feet and immediately tripped over a root, colliding with a large, round growth covered with ruby-like carbuncles. He recoiled and shaded his eyes as light rippled from the growth, the reaction spreading from one organism to another until the entire cathedral-like space was full of light bright as day. He forgot his terror as he found himself standing, awestricken, in a forest. Some growths were like plants, branches and vines swaying in a breeze he couldn’t feel. Others looked so like animals he was afraid to move in case they noticed him; the light had triggered no other reactions, and he reached out slowly to brush against a serpentine tendril. The scaled skin of the thing was warm but no breath moved it, no blood flowed.

He ran his hand over the length of it as he followed its wending path through the forest, wandering towards a a white tree with branches threaded thickly with asymmetrical webbing. Water droplets hung from every thread as though strung like diamonds; the beauty of it distracted Newt further, and without thinking he reached up to touch a low-hanging thread. The breachling’s head thrust through the hole and it cackled again; fear slammed through Newt and he bolted, jarred back to reality. He vaulted a waist-high cabling of roots and fled into a stand of more white trees, the breachling howling behind him.

If the beast caught him he was a dead man. No one would ever know what happened to him…and worse, someone else would find the tunnel here. Someone else would come in and – well, let’s be honest, probably fucking follow safety protocol so shit like this _didn’t happen._ Newt swung around a sharp corner and tumbled down a root-covered hillock, the air knocked out of him when he hit bottom. He lay on his side in a soft patch of mossy growth that glowed dim aqua, waiting for the pain of broken bones or sprained limbs. Fear still made his heart race and the rolling fall had left him dizzy, but nothing seemed to hurt. He rolled onto his stomach, listening as the breachling prowled the hillock and brushed past trees, branches snapping in its wake. He pushed himself up slow and quiet, crawling to a thicket of hanging vines and curling up into a tiny ball behind them.

            The breachling’s growls grew close; Newt twitched back the shielding curtain and saw it far from where he’d landed, head swinging to and fro as it searched for him. The tri-pronged tongue flicked its teeth, flexible tips curling in the humid air. Newt fixed the curtain back in place and crawled through the thicket, cringing when his hands plunged with a soft splash into water at its edge. There was a current flowing towards the far end of the space; Newt waded in and walked as quiet as he could, frowning as he felt the current strengthen.

The constant sound of waves was different here and it grew louder as he walked closer to the room’s edge, soon an unbroken roar. Newt’s heart sank as he reached a new open space. Several floors of the ruins had been ripped apart to open into another cavern, and from each tier waterfalls flowed. The pool below churned and frothed violently, half-obscured by mist. It was much too far to jump. If he was lucky to miss the jutting rebar and broken spikes of pillars, hitting the water would kill him.

            He stood as close to the edge as he dared, watching the dark water roil. He was trapped. No safe way down, no safe way back. The breachling would scent him out soon and then…

            “Of all the fucking stupid ways to die. You _idiot._ ” He glanced around and waded in a random direction; maybe he’d fall into a convenient hole or find a staircase leading to a fire escape. More hanging tendrils capped with soft, green-glowing bulbs hung from the ceiling and sprouted in clumps from the floor, flowing with the current; they were coated with fine hairs like the leaves of a sundew. They glimmered with condensation and stuck to Newt as he brushed through them.

He tried to avoid them but they grew thick here; that was all he needed, getting caught in alien plants that would probably melt his skin off and eat him. Newt sighed as a bulb smacked him in the face, his glasses stuck so firmly they came off when it swung away. He flailed in a burst of fierce frustration, arms and legs ripping free of tendrils and yanking his glasses free. Ceiling and floor rippled with light as his tantrum disturbed the entire stand of tendrils, sending a glowing ring across the room. He watched, aghast as the ring set off another chain reaction of light; he might as well have set off a flare.

            He shoved his glasses back on and waded as quiet as speed would allow, ears straining for the sound of growls. The breachling’s long muzzle poked through another thicket and it crept towards him unseen, its body low to the ground. Its eyes fixed on Newt and it hissed; the sound was inaudible over the rush of the waterfalls. Unaware of the beast as it stalked him, Newt was carefully creeping closer to the edge, following the current and looking for a path to climb up. There was a honeycomb of tunnels accessible through a shredded wall, all too tight for the breachling to follow through. If nothing else it looked like a decent temporary shelter.

            Light rippled over the ceiling again, coasting slowly over Newt and breaking at the growthless edge. An icy, sick feeling wormed through Newt as he looked up and watched it pass over; he turned to look behind him. The breachling stood wreathed in the sticky glowing tendrils, tongue licking its teeth and drooling long ropes of spittle into the water. He nodded slowly and turned to face it, fear turning into a strange, static-like fugue. He was staring down death again and this time there was no escaping it.

            “Okay,” he said, voice hoarse. “Okay.”

            The breachling took a long step forward, then another. It had no trouble wrenching free of the sticky tendrils in the water, trailing them like ribbons with every step. Newt’s steps were unsteady; he couldn’t help but back away from it and the tendrils tripped him up. He landed hard and pushed himself to the edge, water coursing over him into the pool below. The breachling watched him, and without warning its head darted forward, jaws snapping; Newt rolled out of the way and shouted with horror as he went over the edge. He flailed as he fell and seized hold of tendrils hanging rope-like over the edge, their sticky coating left intact despite the rushing water. Elation replaced the fugue and he laughed wildly, staring up at the breachling as it reached for him.

            “ _FUCK YOU!”_

His voice echoed through the cavern and Newt couldn’t have cared less if he stirred up an entire brood of breachlings, belaying clumsily down the tendril ropes and ignoring how the sticky coating pulled at his skin, reopening cuts that had barely stopped bleeding. His laughter choked as the breachling climbed over the edge head-first, that hideous tongue extending toward him. He ran out of length on the tendril and fell again, water thudding hard against him and his arms wrenching in agony as he caught another, swinging forward and colliding with the wall. Water pushed him down and he couldn’t get a breath in; he felt his glasses rip free of his face and he was suddenly slipping and falling once more, his grip on the tendril failing. He bounced against the wall and the water carried him fast, much too fast – a half-drowned scream escaped him as the breachling jumped after him, smaller forelimbs grabbing him tight and the pair plummeting into the pool below.

            The breachling hit the water first. Its body took the brunt of the force as they hit the pool, the shock of it still juddering through Newt and knocking him senseless. They spun in the water, rolling – a death-roll just like an alligator with prey, disorient them and then kill them and then eat them, he was going to die _he was going to die-_

            He hadn’t taken a breath before they hit water. His lungs burned, body still crushed against the breachling’s as it held him. Why wasn’t it eating him yet? Why was it fucking _hugging_ him, just get it over with stop toying with him- Newt struggled against it and the breachling thrashed wildly, kicking back to the surface. Its head broke through the water but it held Newt below; it was looking around the pool and Newt could barely see the chamber they were in; it seemed different, damaged and then rebuilt, columns bent into new shapes, platforms ripped free from walls and set up to some giant remodeler’s satisfaction. Newt’s vision began to dim, reddish-black haze blinding him. He was drowning. The pain in his chest was burning unbearably; reflex would force his mouth open soon and the water would flood in to choke him.

            The breachling shuddered and its grasp loosened. Newt drifted free of it and began to sink, leaden limbs useless as the surface gently rose away from him. His air-starved brain realized he was loose; Newt’s mouth opened and he inhaled a lungful of water, thrashing desperately to get to the surface. The breachling was swimming away rapidly as though something had spooked it, tail propelling it so like an alligator – he was nearly to the surface now, almost _there!_

            Enormous columns of bubbles erupted beneath him and sent him careening up; Newt broke the surface and vomited out all the water he’d breathed in, the bubbles tossing his aching body like flotsam. The breachling was on the opposite shore and trying to climb the wall again; it heard him gasping for breath and swung its head towards him, hissing loudly. The water churned and tossed him under again; he collided with something hard and hot, rolling against a wall that felt covered in snakeskin. He grabbed hold of it and half-swam, half-climbed up back to the surface, clinging to it and coughing. He rested his head against it, eyes closing in relief. Whatever had scared the breachling had saved him, he wasn’t…about to…

            Newt’s eyes opened slowly.

            The wall was breathing.

            He pulled away and looked up. A kaiju looked back, its head tilting to one side.


	16. Chapter 16

16.

 

            The cavern that had seemed so impossibly gigantic only seconds ago seemed much too small now. The kaiju angled its head so it could look down at Newt properly, bowing with its snout brushing the water’s surface. Its thin, angular face reminded Newt of a horse’s skull, the blocky teeth elongated to serrated points and the deep pit of its exposed nasal cavity wet and snorting. Two pairs of orange eyes with horizontal pupils enforced the weird equine impression, though the scaly eyelids that blinked sideways several times in growing consternation weren’t exactly horse-ish. The kaiju’s snout bumped against Newt and sent him rolling in the water. He sank a few feet and bobbed back to the surface in numb shock, unable to speak or do more than tread water to keep himself afloat.

            A secondary paw rose from the water below Newt and lifted him up, depositing him as carefully as possible on a broken platform almost at eye level with the kaiju. It stared at him, the only sounds in the cavern for several tense minutes the white noise of the waterfalls. Newt had curled up into a ball as the kaiju set him down, eyes wide, hugging his knees to his chest and his shallow, fast breathing hissing through clenched teeth. The kaiju twisted its head to the other side, leaning close to watch him; Newt flinched at the motion, rocking back and nearly falling over the platform’s edge.

            The space offered little room for the kaiju to move, but it still darted forward to keep him from falling. The paw was scarred, Newt saw – nothing that broke through its hide but nonetheless left deep scratches and cracks in the scales. Scars from punching through chitin, maybe. Redecorating the ruined city by smashing it one tier at a time, clawing through walls and pillars. He started to shake, a thin hiccupping sound that was caught between a sob and a scream fighting to escape. The kaiju’s face lacked feature enough for obvious expression, but this change in his behavior from stunned to terrorized was distressing it – it gave a low rumbling growl that peaked into a strange belling deep in its throat, repeating the noise over and over as Newt began to hyperventilate.

            It leaned closer still, trying to bump him with the end of its muzzle. Newt recoiled and slipped off the edge of the platform; if the kaiju’s paw hadn’t been there to catch him he would have plummeted into a stand of splintered rebar below. It set him on the platform again and drew back, the sense of distress stronger as it repeated the strange noise. If it was supposed to be a reassurance or explanation Newt couldn’t tell. The noise was growing unbearable combined with the waterfalls and Newt’s own jangling thoughts trying to piece together what the fuck had just happened – as the kaiju began to repeat the noise again he snapped, standing up and the shout ripping free.

            “ _SHUT UP!”_

The kaiju jerked back and fell silent. It pulled away from the platform, sinking down a little way into the pool…no, the _lake._ Newt had a better vantage point to see the cavern now below the mist and without the breachling to distract him. It was too small to admit the kaiju’s entire body but the place was immense, the lake of saltwater churning with little whitecaps and whirlpools. Everywhere the alien growths glowed, throwing neon-hued glimmers on the water and walls. The kaiju’s own slate grey hide bore familiar, bright bioluminescent stripes, the aqua blue glow combining with the softer growth-light. Newt staggered as his overwhelmed brain tried to take in this newest sight; he sank back down to sit, head in his hands.

            “I’m gonna throw up,” he croaked. “I’m gonna fuckin’ heave.”

            He swallowed wetly, breathing still ragged but calming a little. He felt nauseous but too weak with shock to make good on the threat; he hugged his arms around himself, willing the sickness to ease. In the past fifteen minutes he had been hunted, fallen down a fucking waterfall, almost drowned and now… the kaiju was staring up at him with those bulby orange eyes, the growl still silenced. He looked back at it, swallowing hard again a few times before trusting himself to speak.

            “Come here.” The kaiju rose to eye level again, snorting and clicking its teeth. Newt pushed himself up again; the kaiju flinched, but when he didn’t shout it leaned forward once more, uncertainty clear in its tense posture. Newt squinted at it, then sighed and dug through his soaked and ripped bag. He pulled out his spare glasses and put them on, wiping water off the scratched lenses. “That’s…that’s better. Learned my lesson about keeping extras.”

            The kaiju didn’t respond to this, merely looking at him again with its head tilting to and fro like a curious animal. Newt reached out and it inched its head down, the tip of its snout resting against his palm. The feverish heat of the kaiju’s scales burned against Newt’s skin, its breath laced with a familiar odor of ammonia. His eyes welled with sudden tears, painting thin stripes down his face unheeded.

            “You lied.” The kaiju’s eyes flickered, pupils widening. “You lied to me _._ ”

            He pulled back, his hand curling against his chest as he took an unsteady step away. The kaiju repeated the rolling noise, the belling sound peaking like a question. Newt shook his head and made a low, agonized sound.

            “You lied _._ Everything we went through- everything I did for you, did to myself! All of it and you _lied!_ I sent you home! I set you _free_ – all of it, all of it was so you could go back to the Anteverse! That was the _DEAL!”_

The kaiju blinked one set of eyes slowly, then the other. Its head hung low and it repeated the rolling sound once more. Its paw rose from the water and reached out to Newt – he swatted it away and it paused.

            “ _No_. No, I am – you lied to me, and now all this Precursors bullshit is happening again. Marshall Hansen- oh. Oh, my god. I was sure you were gone. I told him. I TOLD him I was sure. I lied to the _Marshall_!” Newt felt hysterical, pacing the platform from one edge to the other. The kaiju still made no response but the rolling growl, and he turned on it angrily. “I am so _fucking mad at you._ ”

            The growl choked off. The kaiju’s eyes widened and it drew back, secondary paws lacing over its chest and shoulders seeming to hunch. “Oh, you understand _that?_ D’you understand ‘promise’ and ‘trust’ and ‘stay in your own fucking universe’? Does that ring any bells?”

            The kaiju looked away. Newt glared daggers at it and paced circuit around the platform again, muttering.

            “I can’t tell him the truth. I tell him, he’ll get the Jaegers deployed,” he said. The kaiju jolted at the words and looked at him again. “It’ll be a massacre, Mako’s got almost all the viable Jaegers back up and running. They’ll kill you. But I can’t just _hide_ you, how the hell you’ve stayed under the radar this long….what do I do? I don’t know how to fix this!”

            It watched Newt and almost meekly repeated the rolling noise, the belling echoing to catch his attention. He glared at it again and it bore the gaze unflinching.

            “You got something to say?” he asked it. “Go ahead. I’m listening. Speak up.”

            There was no answer. He had braced himself for it on instinct, but there were no echoes of pitching, voiceless words pushing through his mind. Newt waited, his anger ebbing as he realized what he was expecting. He reached slowly to the back of his head, fingertips brushing a spot at the base of his skull that had once ached with pain like ice. A bridge to the hivemind long since closed.

            “I can’t hear you,” he said slowly. His voice cracked, emotions choking him as the understanding set in. Fresh tears welled and a sense of loss he hadn’t felt in months overwhelmed him. “There’s nothing there anymore. Just the scars.”

            The kaiju gave a low hiss, the tip of its snout bumping against his shoulder; the gesture was careful but still knocked Newt over. It made an alarmed sound but made no move to help him up, almost seeming afraid it would injure him if it tried. He pushed himself up and fixed his glasses where they sat crooked, wiping hard at his face. His breath hitched a few times before finally he began to calm down. The kaiju rested its head down beside him on the platform, a low growl rattling in its throat. An affirmation, maybe. Or maybe an explanation, an apology…Newt had no way to know.

            A strange mix of grief, guilt and joy seared through him. Newt leaned against the kaiju’s snout, hands clutching at its iron-hard scales. “I missed you. I’ve missed you so much, you don’t even know. Why did you stay? I can’t get you home again, you understand that? I have no idea how to open a Breach. You’re _trapped_ here. Why the hell would you stay?”

            He rested his head against it, feeling the reverberation of its growling shake through his bones. The guilt surged, making it difficult to breathe again for a moment; what the hell was he doing being happy to see a kaiju again? Just because they’d been allies – just because he’d sicced them on the Precursors, set them free, learned to understand them and…Newt laughed and the sound was a ragged sob. His friends. His _friends_ were here, beings he had resigned himself to never seeing again. They were here, not lost to him.

            The scarred secondary paw curled around Newt in a sheltering gesture, the glow of the growths cut off and leaving in him hot, murky darkness. It took a long time for the tears to end and Newt felt wrung out and hollow when they finally ran dry. His head ached, exhaustion suffusing every limb. The kaiju growled and hissed to itself, never moving and the protective paw firmly around him. He was in danger of falling asleep when common sense jolted him awake, a stray thought biting at him.

            “I’ve been gone too long, I gotta get back. Hermann’ll…” Newt shuddered. Hermann would _what?_ What in God’s name would he do once he found out there was a live, category-who knew what kaiju living in a second Precursor city? Newt tapped on the kaiju’s snout and its paw withdrew, those bright eyes looking down at him curiously. “I can’t stay here. I gotta go back.”

            The kaiju shook itself, churning the water below into tall waves. It snapped its teeth for emphasis and Newt pushed himself up, defiant.

            “I can’t stay here, and you can’t force me,” he said. “You’re the friend… _friends_ I knew. So you know when I tell you I gotta go, I _need_ to. Hermann’s gonna kill me. And you better pray he doesn’t wanna kill you.”

            The kaiju drew back again, its head swinging hard with a sharp staccato rattle. It snapped its teeth again, giant primary paws lifting from the water and flexing claws that could rend steel to ribbons. Newt was unimpressed; he stood his ground, glaring and crossing his arms over his chest.

            “Sorry, can’t hear your side of the argument.” The kaiju hissed with pointed urgency, its teeth snapping; Newt paused, studying the expression. “What does that mean?” He mimicked the snapping, baring his teeth before shrugging in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

            The kaiju groaned, a claw pointing upwards. Newt looked up and jolted in primal fear; several breachlings had gathered at the highest points of the falls, looking down at him and the kaiju balefully. They were well out of its reach and flinched every time it moved, but their hardwired instinct of hunt-and-kill was clearly honed in on him. He spotted the first breachling among them; it snapped its teeth at him just as the kaiju had, strings of saliva dripping off the serrated points.

            “You’re warning me,” he said, comprehension dawning. He looked back at the kaiju; its teeth clacked together loudly, claw still extended to point at the beasts. “Breachlings. Okay. Okay, I get it.” He clicked his teeth for emphasis, nodding. “I understand.”

            The claw dropped, its paw splashing back down into the water. The kaiju groaned loudly and leaned back to rest against the far cavern wall; the chitin creaked and shifted but held its weight. Newt sat back down with a thud and held his head in his hands, the exhaustion sweeping over him again heavily.

            “Okay. Can’t get there from here, not if I don't wanna get eaten. Not pushing my luck more than once today.” He unslung his bag from his shoulder, emptying out the contents to take inventory. His field notebook (waterlogged, the ink running). His cellphone (still turning on but no signal, the battery half-depleted).  Half a sandwich (wrapped in cellophane, dry but smashed to paste). The walkie talkie…Newt clicked it a few times without hope, rewarded only with sharp squeals of static. He turned it off and threw it back into his bag, lying down on the chitinous ground tiredly. The kaiju groaned again, and he looked over at it.

            “You said it. You hungry?” It blinked at him and leaned forward, neck extending a disturbing length from its body, jaws swinging open expectantly. He unwrapped the sandwich and lobbed it into its mouth. “Enjoy. That’s top ration ticket-grade tuna there, dude.”

            Whether it could taste such a tiny scrap was debatable, but the kaiju seemed pleased all the same. It leaned back and growled at him, tongue sweeping over its teeth. Newt laughed and the faint echo of it bounced back at him from all sides.

            “How long have you been here?” he asked, lying down again and staring up at the distant ceiling. There were thin cracks in the chitin far above, white sunlight spearing downwards. “You can’t have been an original Breach admission, no way you woulda just camped out in the ocean ‘til now. So that means you’re Second Wave. There were so many…so _many_ …”       

            Dozens. Maybe even hundreds. The Breaches that ripped the world open in the Second Wave had spewed one kaiju after another, the Precursors’ desperate last push for invasion. But they had turned back…Newt remembered watching the armies of kaiju turn in on themselves, the hive he had released spreading through the ranks like wildfire and pushing back into the Anteverse. It was possible a kaiju might get separated from its fellows and be trapped on this side, unable to reach a Breach before it closed down…possible, but how likely?

            How many more had stayed?

            The thought settled in Newt’s mind like a lead weight. He closed his eyes, a low pained sound escaping. “You’re not alone, are you.”

            The kaiju was silent for a long, long time; Newt listened to the hyena-like cackles and chitters of the breachlings above them, the eternal crashing of the waterfalls, the slow roll and crash of waves. An hour had passed before he opened his eyes again, looking over at the kaiju. It was looking down at the water, secondary paws laced over its chest again and its shoulders hunched.

            “How many others are here?” Newt asked, so softly it had to lean close to him again to hear. “How _many?_ Why wouldn’t you tell me you were staying? Do you know how bad this is?”

            It moaned, the noise sending the breachlings scurrying away in cackling fright. Newt pushed himself up, leaning on his elbows as he stared at the kaiju’s face. “You do know. You understand perfectly how bad an idea this was. How many are here? Do I have to count?” He sat up straight, trying to catch the kaiju’s gaze as it looked away from him.

            “I’m gonna count,” he said. “And you’re gonna stop me when I hit the right number. Growl or something. Okay?”

            One set of eyes finally looked over at him again, the kaiju still silent. “One. Two. Three. Four.” Newt’s insides clenched as it made no move to interrupt. “Five. Six. Seven.” Oh, God. Let it stop him. Why wasn’t it stopping him? “Eight. Nine. Ten.” It tilted its head but uttered no noise. “Eleven. Twelve….thirteen?” He paused, mouth running dry. “Really? Okay. Okay. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen-”

            Above them the breachlings returned in greater numbers, their yips and snarls making Newt jump in fright. He turned to glare at them and the kaiju growled, its forked tail smashing against the wall. The violent reverberation scattered them and one lost its footing, toppling with a shriek into the water; Newt watched as the kaiju snatched the flailing beast up and stuffed it into its mouth, a single wet _crunch_ silencing the cries. It growled and licked dark blood from its teeth, looking back at Newt. The count sat heavy in his mind at _sixteen_ – sixteen kaiju, hiding who knew where.

            He shook his head, hands raising. He couldn’t take much more and this was pushing his endurance. “Forget it. It’s not dinner conversation.” It made a low, deep sound, a paw wiping at its mouth. “You got some, uh…viscera. Right…” he pointed at the corner of his own mouth; the kaiju wiped again at its teeth, smearing the blood. “Never mind. You’re good.”

            It growled again, settling back and watching him. Newt laid back down and curled on his side, using his bag as a pillow. Exhaustion settled in heavier than before, and without meaning to, he slept.

 

 

* * *

 

 

            It was the slow, rocking sensation of movement that roused him. He was on hard, unyielding ground, hot as though it had been baking in the summer sun. Newt rolled over onto his back and grasped for his glasses, finding them sitting crooked on his face. He fixed them and opened his eyes slowly, staring up at a sky riddled thick and bright with stars. For a moment he was certain he was dreaming; a fever dream of ocean and sky, the sound of heavy deep breaths and the glow of eyes in the dark…the relief was profound and he laid back, hands pressed to his face. It was a dream. The cities, the breachling, the kaiju. It wasn’t real.

            A low, droning sound grew from somewhere beneath him and the world shook, tones so deep he couldn’t so much hear as _feel_ them – Newt felt it in his core, the vibration piercing flesh through to the very marrow of his bones. His hands fell away and rested against the scales of the kaiju’s paw as it carried him, cradled in its palm. The relief faded as quickly as it had come and he sat up, looking through the protective cage of its fingers to the night-black sea below.

            “Where are you taking me?” Orange eyes blinked down at him, the kaiju giving another low, sonorous call. Newt wondered why he wasn’t afraid. Was he so sure it wouldn’t turn on him? That it wouldn’t decide it couldn’t risk him running free and telling everyone about it and its fellows? Without a doubt, Newt knew he couldn’t betray them. Not after everything they had endured together….so this was it, then. It was taking him away, somewhere no one would ever find him to protect its secret. He settled himself down into a kneel, body rocking slightly with the kaiju’s slow, lurching pace. He could be anywhere in the world. No one would ever find him again.

            The kaiju’s low call came again, echoing over the water. Newt’s head hung down and he listened to it, studying the way it shivered through his bones and blood.

            Far out to sea, an answering call came.


End file.
